THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


LITERARY  STUDIES 

VOL.  II. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE. 
Issued  in  "Silver  Library,"  July,  1895;  reprinted, 


June,  i? 


LITERARY    STUDIES 


WALTER  BAGEHOT 

M.A.    AND    FELLOW   OF    UNIVERSITY    COLLEGE,    LONDON 


EDITED,    WITH    A    PREFATORY    MEMOIR,    BY 

RICHARD  HOLT  HUTTON 

IN  THREE  VOLUMES 
VOL.  II. 


NEW  IMPRESSION 

LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 

NEW  YORK  AND  BOMBAY 

1898 

[All  rights  reserved] 


College 
Library 


y.A* 

CONTENTS 


THE    SECOND    VOLUME 

ESSAY  FAGB 

I.  THOMAS  BABINOTON  MACAULAV  (National  Review,  January, 

1856) i 

II.  BERANGER  (National  Review,  October,  1857)  44 

III.  THE  WAVERi.EV  NOVELS  (National  Review,  April,  1858)     -  85 

IV.  CHARLES  DICKENS  (National  Review,  October,  1858)    -         -  127 
V.  JOHN  MILTON  (National  Review,  July,  1859)         -         -         -  168 

VI.   LADY  MARY  WORTLEY    MONTAGU  (National   Review,   Jan- 
uary, 1862)               ........  221 

VII.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS  (National  Review,  October,  1862)               -  257 

VIII.  STERNE  AND  THACKERAY  (National  Review,  April,  1864)      -  282 

IX.  WORDSWORTH,  TENNYSON,  AND  BROWNING  ;    or,  Pure,  Or- 
nate,   and  Grotesque  Art  in  English    Poetry  (National 

Review,  November,  1864)       ------  326 


>f  ^  Ctar^r'f* 

i  /%  >*  JT\T\ 

J  JLUA  c  UU 


LITERARY   STUDIES. 

THOMAS   BABINGTON    MACAULAY.1 

(1856.) 

THIS  is  a  marvellous  book.  Everybody  has  read  it,  and 
every  one  has  read  it  with  pleasure.  It  has  little  advantage 
of  subject.  When  the  volumes  came  out,  an  honest  man 
said,  "  I  suppose  something  happened  between  the  years 
1689  and  1697  ;  but  what  happened  I  do  not  know  ".  Every 
one  knows  now.  No  period  with  so  little  obvious  interest 
will  henceforth  be  so  familiarly  known.  Only  a  most 
felicitous  and  rather  curious  genius  could  and  would  shed 
such  a  light  on  such  an  age.  If  in  the  following  pages  we 
seem  to.  cavil  and  find  fault,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  the 
business  of  a  critic  is  criticism  ;  that  it  is  not  his  business  to 
be  thankful ;  that  he  must  attempt  an  estimate  rather  than  a 
eulogy. 

Macaulay2  seems  to  have  in  a  high  degree  the  tempera- 
ment most  likely  to  be  that  of  a  historian.  This  may  be 
summarily  defined  as  the  temperament  which  inclines  men 
to  take  an  interest  in  actions  as  contrasted  with  objects,  ana 
in  past  actions  in  preference  to  present  actions.  We  should 

1  The  History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  the  Second. 
By  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.     Longmans. 

2  This  paper  was  of  course  published  before  Lord  Macaulay  received 
his  peerage. 

VOL.  II.  I 


Literary  Studies. 


expand  our  meaning.  Some  people  are  unfortunately  born 
scientific.  They  take  much  interest  in  the  objects  of  nature. 
They  feel  a  curiosity  about  shells,  snails,  horses,  butterflies. 
They  are  delighted  at  an  ichthyosaurus,  and  excited  at 
a  polyp  ;  they  are  learned  in  minerals,  vegetables,  animals  ; 
they  have  skill  in  fishes,  and  attain  renown  in  pebbles  :  in 
the  highest  cases  they  know  the  great  causes  of  grand 
phenomena,  can  indicate  the  courses  of  the  stars  or  the 
current  of  the  waves  ;  but  in  every  case  their  minds  are 
directed  not  to  the  actions  of  man,  but  to  the  scenery  amidst 
which  he  lives  ;  not  to  the  inhabitants  of  this  world,  but  to 
the  world  itself;  not  to  what  most  resembles  themselves, 
but  to  that  which  is  most  unlike.  What  compels  men  to 
take  an  interest  in  what  they  do  take  an  interest  in,  is  com- 
monly a  difficult  question — for  the  most  part,  indeed,  it  is  an 
nsoluble  one  ;  but  in  this  case  it  would  seem  to  have  a 
icgative  cause — to  result  from  the  absence  of  an  intense  and 
fivid  nature.  The  inclination  of  mind  which  abstracts  the 
attention  from  that  in  which  it  can  feel  sympathy  to  that  in 
vhich  it  cannot,  seems  to  arise  from  a  want  of  sympathy.  A 
tendency  to  devote  the  mind  to  trees  and  stones  as  much  as 
to,  or  in  preference  to,  men  and  women,  appears  to  imply  that 
the  intellectual  qualities,  the  abstract  reason,  and  the  induc- 
tive scrutiny  which  can  be  applied  equally  to  trees  and  to  men, 
to  stones  and  to  women,  predominate  over  the  more  special 
qualities  solely  applicable  to  our  own  race, — the  keen  love, 
the  eager  admiration,  the  lasting  hatred,  the  lust  of  rule 
which  fasten  men's  interests  on  people  and  to  people.  As 
a  confirmation  of  this,  we  see  that,  even  in  the  greatest 
cases,  scientific  men  have  been  calm  men.  Their  actions 
are  unexceptionable  ;  scarcely  a  spot  stains  their  excellence: 
if  a  doubt  is  to  be  thrown  on  their  character,  it  would  be 
rather  that  they  were  insensible  to  the  temptations  than  that 
mey  were  involved  in  the  offences  of  ordinary  men.  An 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


aloofness  and  abstractedness  cleave  to  their  greatness. 
There  is  a  coldness  in  their  fame.  We  think  of  Euclid  as  of 
fine  ice ;  we  admire  Newton  as  we  admire  the  Peak  of 
Teneriffe.  Even  the  intensest  labours,  the  most  remote 
triumphs  of  the  abstract  intellect,  seem  to  carry  us  into  a 
region  different  from  our  own — to  be  in  a  terra  incognita  of 
pure  reasoning,  to  cast  a  chill  on  human  glory. 

We  know  that  the  taste  of  most  persons  is  quite  opposite. 
The  tendency  of  man  is  to  take  an  interest  in  man,  and 
almost  in  man  only.  The  world  has  a  vested  interest  in 
itself.  Analyse  the  minds  of  the  crowd  of  men,  and  what 
will  you  find  ?  Something  of  the  outer  earth,  no  doubt, — 
odd  geography,  odd  astronomy,  doubts  whether  Scutari  is  in 
the  Crimea,  investigations  whether  the  moon  is  less  or 
greater  than  Jupiter ;  some  idea  of  herbs,  more  of  horses  ; 
ideas,  too,  more  or  less  vague,  of  the  remote  and  supernatu- 
ral,— notions  which  the  tongue  cannot  speak,  which  it  would 
seem  the  world  would  hardly  bear  if  thoroughly  spoken.  Yet, 
setting  aside  these  which  fill  the  remote  corners  and  lesser 
outworks  of  the  brain,  the  whole  stress  and  vigour  of  tht 
ordinary  faculties  is  expended  on  their  possessor  and  hi$ 
associates,  on  the  man  and  on  his  fellows.  In  almost  all 
men,  indeed,  this  is  not  simply  an  intellectual  contemplation; 
we  not  only  look  on,  but  act.  The  impulse  to  busy  ourselves 
with  the  affairs  of  men  goes  further  than  the  simple  attempt 
to  know  and  comprehend  them  :  it  warms  us  with  a  further! 
life  ;  it  incites  us  to  stir  and  influence  those  affairs  ;  its; 
animated  energy  will  not  rest  till  it  has  hurried  us  into  toil 
and  conflict.  At  this  stage  the  mind  of  the  historian,  as  we 
abstractedly  fancy  it,  naturally  breaks  off:  it  has  more  interest 
in  human  affairs  than  the  naturalist ;  it  instinctively  selects 
the  actions  of  man  for  occupation  and  scrutiny,  in  preference 
to  the  habits  of  fishes  or  the  structure  of  stones  ;  but  it  has 
not  so  much  vivid  interest  in  them  as  the  warm  and  active 


Literary  Studies. 


man.  To  know  is  sufficient  for  it ;  it  can  bear  not  to  take  a 
part.  A  want  of  impulse  seems  born  with  the  disposition. 
To  be  constantly  occupied  about  the  actions  of  others  ;  to 
have  constantly  presented  to  your  contemplation  and  atten- 
tion events  and  occurrences  memorable  only  as  evincing 
certain  qualities  of  mind  and  will,  which  very  qualities  in  a 
measure  you  feel  within  yourself,  and  yet  to  be  without  an 
impulse  to  exhibit  them  in  the  real  world,  "  which  is  the 
world  of  all  of  us  " ; l  to  contemplate,  yet  never  act;  "  to  have 
the  House  before  you,"  and  yet  to  be  content  with  the 
reporters'  gallery, — shows  a  chill  impassiveness  of  tempera- 
/nent,  a  sluggish  insensibility  to  ardent  impulse,  a  heavy 
(immobility  under  ordinary  emotion.  The  image  of  the  stout 
Gibbon  placidly  contemplating  the  animated  conflicts,  the 
stirring  pleadings  of  Fox  and  Burke,  watching  a  revolution 
and  heavily  taking  no  part  in  it,  gives  an  idea  of  the  historian 
as  he  is  likely  to  be.  "  Why,"  it  is  often  asked,  "  is  history 
dull  ?  It  is  a  narrative  of  life,  and  life  is  of  all  things  the 
jmost  interesting."  The  answer  is,  that  it  is  written  by  men 
too  dull  to  take  the  common  interest  in  life,  in  whom  languor 
predominates  over  zeal,  and  sluggishness  over  passion. 

Macaulay  is  not  dull,  and  it  may  seem  hard  to  attempt  to 
bring  him  within  the  scope  of  a  theory  which  is  so  successful 
in  explaining  dulness.  Yet,  in  a  modified  and  peculiar  form, 
we  can  perhaps  find  in  his  remarkable  character  unusually 
distinct  traces  of  the  insensibility  which  we  ascribe  to  the 
historian.  The  means  of  scrutiny  are  ample.  Macaulay  has 
not  spent  his  life  in  a  corner  ;  if  posterity  should  refuse — of 
course  they  will  not  refuse— to  read  a  line  of  his  writings, 
they  would  yet  be  sought  out  by  studious  inquirers,  as  those 
of  a  man  of  high  political  position,  great  notoriety,  and 
greater  oratorical  power.  We  are  not  therefore  obliged,  as 
in  so  many  cases  even  among  contemporaries,  to  search  for 

J  Wordsworth  :  "  The  Prelude,"  book  xi. 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


the  author's  character  in  his  books  alone  ;  we  are  able  from 
other  sources  to  find  out  his  character,  and  then  apply  it  to 
explain  the  peculiarities  of  his  works.  Macaulay  has  ex- 
hibited many  high  attainments,  many  dazzling  talents,  much 
singular  and  well-trained  power;  but  the  quality  which 
would  most  strike  the  observers  of  the  interior  man  is  what 
may  be  called  his  z«experienciiig-«ature.  Men  of  genius  are 
in  general  distinguished  by  their  extreme  susceptibility  to 
external  experience.  Finer  and  softer  than  other  men,  every 
exertion  of  their  will,  every  incident  of  their  lives,  influences 
them  more  deeply  than  it  would  others.  Their  essence  is  at 
once  finer  and  more  impressible ;  it  receives  a  distincter 
mark,  and  receives  it  more  easily  than  the  souls  of  the  herd. 
From  a  peculiar  sensibility,  the  man  of  genius  bears  the 
stamp  of  life  commonly  more  clearly  than  his  fellows  ;  evert 
casual  associations  make  a  deep  impression  on  him  j 
examine  his  mind,  and  you  may  discern  his  fortunes/. 
Macaulay  has^nothing  of  this.  You  could  not  tell  what  he 
has  been.  His  mind  shows  no  trace  of  change.  What  he 
is,  he  was  ;  and  what  he  was,  he  is.  He  early  attained  a 
high  development,  but  he  has  not  increased  it  since  ;  years 
have  come,  but  they  have  whispered  little  ;  as  was  said  of 
the  second  Pitt,  "  He  never  grew,  he  was  cast ".  The 
volume  of  speeches  which  he  has  published  places  the 
proof  of  this  in  every  man's  hand.  His  first  speeches  are  as 
good  as  his  last ;  his  last  scarcely  richer  than  his  first.  He 
came  into  public  life  at  an  exciting  season  ;  he  shared  of 
course  in  that  excitement,  and  the  same  excitement  still 
quivers  in  his  mind.  He  delivered  marvellous  rhetorical 
exercises  on  the  Reform  Bill  when  it  passed  ;  he  speaks  of  it 
with  rhetorical  interest  even  now.  He  is  still  the  man  of 
'32.  From  that  era  he  looks  on  the  past.  He  sees  "  Old 
Sarum  "  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  Gatton  in  the  civil 
wars.  You  may  fancy  an  undertone.  The  Norman  barons 


Literary  Studies. 


commenced  the  series  of  reforms  which  "we  consummated"; 
Hampden  was  "  preparing  for  the  occasion  in  which  I  had  a 
part  "  ;  William  "  for  the  debate  in  which  I  took  occasion  to 
observe  ".  With  a  view  to  that  era  everything  begins  ;  up 
to  that  moment  everything  ascends.  That  was  the  "  fifth 
act "  of  the  human  race  ;  the  remainder  of  history  is  only  an 
afterpiece.  All  this  was  very  natural  at  the  moment ; 
nothing  could  be  more  probable  than  that  a  young  man  of  the 
greatest  talents,  entering  at  once  into  important  life  at  a 
conspicuous  opportunity,  should  exaggerate  its  importance  ; 
he  would  fancy  it  was  the  "  crowning  achievement,"  the 
greatest  "  in  the  tide  of  time  ''.  But  the  singularity  is,  that 
he  should  retain  the  idea  now  ;  that  years  have  brought  no 
^influence,  experience  no  change.  The  events  of  twenty  years 
Uhave  been  full  of  rich  instruction  on  the  events  of  twenty 
years  ago  ;  but  they  have  not  instructed  him.  His^creed  is 
a  fixture.  It  is  the  same  on  his  peculiar  topic — on  India. 
Before  he  went  there  he  made  a  speech  on  the  subject;  Lord 
Canterbury,  who  must  have  heard  a  million  speeches,  said  it 
was  the  best  that  he  had  ever  heard.  It  is  difficult  to  fancy 
that  so  much  vivid  knowledge  could  be  gained  from  books — 
from  horrible  Indian  treatises;  that  such  imaginative  mastery 
should  be  possible  without  actual  experience.  Not  forget- 
ting, or  excepting,  the  orations  of  Burke,  it  was  perhaps  as 
remarkable  a  speech  as  was  ever  made  on  India  by  an 
Englishman  who  had  not  been  in  India.  Now  he  has  been 
there  he  speaks  no  better — rather  worse;  he  spoke  excellently 
without  experience,  he  speaks  no  better  with  it, — if  anything, 
it  rather  puts  him  out.  His  speech  on  the  Indian  charter  a 
year  or  two  ago  was  not  finer  than  that  on  the  charter  of 
1833.  Before  he  went  to  India  he  recommended  that  writers 
should  be  examined  in  the  classics  ;  after  being  in  India  he 
recommended  that  they  should  be  examined  in  the  same  way. 
He  did  not  say  he  had  seen  the  place  in  the  meantime  ;  he 


Thomas  Babinglon  Macaulay. 


did  not  think  that  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  You  could 
never  tell  from  any  difference  in  his  style  what  he  had  seen, 
or  what  he  had  not  seen.  He  is  so  insensible  to  passing, 
objects,  that  they  leave  no  distinctive  mark,  no  intimate/ 
peculiar  trace. 

Such  a  man  would  naturally  think  literature  more  instruc- 
tive than  life.  Hazlitt  said  of  Mackintosh,  "  He  might  like 
to  read  an  account  of  India;  but  India  itself,  with  its  burning, 
shining  face,  was  a  mere  blank,  an  endless  waste  to  him. 
Persons  of  this  class  have  no  more  to  say  to  a  plain  matter 
.  of  fact  staring  them  in  the  face  than  they  have  to  say  to  a 
hippopotamus"  1  This  was  a  keen  criticism  on  Sir  James, 
savouring  of  the  splenetic  mind  from  which  it  came.  As  a 
complete  estimate,  it  would  be  a  most  unjust  one  of 
Macaulay  ;  but  we  know  that  there  is  a  whole  class  of  minds 
which  prefers  the  literary  delineation  of  objects  to  the  actual 
eyesight  of  them.  To  some  life  is  difficult.  An  insensible 
nature,  like  a  rough  hide:  resists  the  breath  of  passing  things; 
an  unobserving  retina  in  vain  depicts  whatever  a  quicker  eye 
does  not  explain.  But  any  one  can  understand  a  book  ;  the 
work  is  done,  the  facts  observed,  the  formulae  suggested,  the 
subjects  classified.  Of  course  it  needs  labour,  and  a  follow- 
ing fancy,  to  peruse  the  long  lucubrations  and  descriptions  of 
others  ;  but  a  fine  detective  sensibility  is  unnecessary  ;  type 
is  plain,  an  earnest  attention  will  followTFand  know  it.  To 
this  class  Macaulay  belongs :  and  he  has  characteristically 
maintained  that  dead  authors  are  more  fascinating  than 
living  people. 

"  Those  friendships,  "  he  tells  us,  "  are  exposed  to  no  danger  from 
the  occurrences  by  which  other  attachments  are  weakened  or  dissolved. 
Time  glides  by ;  fortune  is  inconstant ;  tempers  are  soured  ;  bonds  which 
seemed  indissoluble  are  daily  sundered  by  interest,  by  emulation,  or  by 
caprice.  But  no  such  cause  can  affect  the  silent  converse  which  we  hold 

1  Essay  in  the  Spirit  of  the  Age. 


Literary  Studies. 


with  the  highest  of  human  intellects.  That  placid  intercourse  is  disturbed 
by  no  jealousies  or  resentments.  These  are  the  old  friends  who  are  never 
seen  with  new  faces ;  who  are  the  same  in  wealth  and  in  poverty,  in  glory 
and  in  obscurity.  With  the  dead  there  is  no  rivalry.  In  the  dead  there 
is  no  change.  Plato  is  never  sullen.  Cervantes  is  never  petulant.  De- 
mosthenes never  comes  unseasonably.  Dante  never  stays  too  long.  No 
difference  of  political  opinion  can  alienate  Cicero.  No  heresy  can  excite 
the  horror  of  Bossuet."  ] 

But  Bossuet  is  dead  ;    and  Cicero  was  a  Roman  ;   and 
Plato  wrote   in    Greek.      Years  and  manners  separate  us 
from  the  great.     After  dinner,  Demosthenes  may  come  un- 
seasonably ;  Dante  might  stay  too  long.     We  are  alienated 
from  the  politician,  and  have  a  horror  of  the  theologian. 
Dreadful  idea,  having  Demosthenes  for  an  intimate  friend  ! 
He  had  pebbles  in  his  mouth;  he  was  always  urging  action; 
he  spoke  such  good  Greek;  we  cannot  dwell  on  it, — it  is  too 
much.      Only  a  mind  impassive  to  our  daily  life,  unalive  to 
bores  and  evils,  to  joys  and  sorrows,  incapable  of  the  deepest 
sympathies,  a  prey  to  print,  could  imagine  it.      The  mass  of 
Jmen  have  stronger  ties  and  warmer  hopes.      The  exclusive 
/devotion  to  books  tires.     We  require  to  love  and  hate,  to  act 
I  and  live. 

It  is  not  unnatural  that  a  person  of  this  temperament 
should  preserve  a  certain  aloofness  even  in  the  busiest  life. 
Macaulay  has  ever  done  so.  He  has  been  in  the  thick  of 
political  warfare,  in  the  van  of  party  conflict.  Whatever  a 
keen  excitability  would  select  for  food  and  opportunity,  has 
fceen  his ;  but  he  has  not  been  excited.  He  has  never 
piro^wijiimself  upon  action,  he  has  never  followed  trivial 
petails  with  an  anxious  passion.  He  has  ever  been  a  man 
for  a  great  occasion.  He  was  by  nature  a  deus  ex  machind. 
Somebody  has  had  to  fetch  him.  His  heart  was  in  Queen 
Anne's  time.  When  he  came,  he  spoke  as  Lord  Halifax 

1  Essay  on  "  Bacon  ". 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


might  have  spoken.  Of  course,  it  may  be  contended  that 
this  is  the  eximia  ars  ;  that  this  solitary  removed  excellence 
is  particularly  and  essentially  sublime.  But,  simply  and 
really,  greater  men  have  been  more  deeply  "  immersed  in 
matter  "-1  The  highest  eloquence  quivers  with  excitement ; 
there  is  life-blood  in  the  deepest  actions;  a  man  like  Stafford 
seems  flung  upon  the  world.  An  orator  should  never  talk 
like  an  observatory ;  no  coldness  should  strike  upon  the 
hearer. 

It  is  characteristic  also  that  Macaulay  should  be  con- 
tinually thinking  of  posterity.  In  general,  that  expected 
authority  is  most  ungrateful ;  those  who  think  of  it  most,  it 
thinks  of  least.  The  way  to  secure  its  favour  is,  to  give 
vivid  essential  pictures  of  the  life  before  you ;  to  leave  a 
fresh  glowing  delineation  of  the  scene  to  which  you  were 
born,  of  the  society  to  which  you  have  peculiar  access.  This 
is  gained,  not  by  thinking  of  your  posterity,  but  by  living  in 
society  ;  not  by  poring  on  what  is  to  be,  but  by  enjoying 
what  is.  That  spirit  of  thorough  enjoyment  which  pervades 
the  great  delineators  of  human  life  and  human  manners,  was 
not  caused  by  "  being  made  after  supper,  out  of  a  cheese- 
paring";2 it  drew  its  sustenance  from  a  relishing,  enjoying, 
sensitive  life,  and  the  flavour  of  the  description  is  the  reality 
of  that  enjoyment.  Of  course  this  is  not  so  in  science. 
You  may  leave  a  name  by  an  abstract  discovery,  without 
having  led  a  vigorous  existence  ;  yet  what  a  name  is  this  ! 
Taylor's  theorem  will  go  down  to  posterity, — possibly  its 
discoverer  was  for  ever  dreaming  and  expecting  it  would  ; 
but  what  does  posterity  know  of  the  deceased  Taylor  ? 
Nominis  umbra  3  is  rather  a  compliment ;  for  it  is  not 

1  Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding ;  book  iv.,  chapter  iii.,  i,  2. 
2"2  King  Henry  IV.,"  iii.  2. 

3  Stat  nominis  umbra;  the  famous  mottn  of  Junius.  (Forrest 
Morgan.) 


1 6  Literary  Studies. 


substantial  enough  to  have  a  shadow.  But  in  other  walks, 
— say  in  political  oratory,  which  is  the  part  of  Macaulay's 
composition  in  which  his  value  for  posterity's  opinion  is 
most  apparent, — the  way  to  interest  posterity  is  to  think  but 
little  of  it.  What  gives  to  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes  the 
interest  they  have  ?  The  intense,  vivid,  glowing  interest  of 
the  speaker  in  all  that  he  is  speaking  about.  Philip  is  not  a 
person  whom  "  posterity  will  censure,"  but  the  man  "whom 
I  hate":  the  matter  in  hand  not  one  whose  interest  depends 
on  the  memory  of  men,  but  in  which  an  eager  intense  nature 
would  have  been  absorbed,  if  there  had  been  no  posterity  at 
all,  on  which  he  wished  to  deliver  his  own  soul.  A  casual 
character,  so  to  speak,  is  natural  to  the  most  intense  words ; 
externally,  even,  they  will  interest  the  "  after  world"  more 
for  having  interested  the  present  world  ;  they  must  have  a 
life  of  some  place  and  some  time  before  they  can  have  one 
of)  all  space  and  all  time.  Macaulay's  oratory  is  the  very 
opposite  of  this.  Schoolboyish  it  is  not,  for  it  is  the  oratory 
of  a  very  sensible  man  ;  but  the  theme  of  a  schoolboy  is  not 
more  devoid  of  the  salt  of  circumstance.  The  speeches  on 
the  Reform  Bill  have  been  headed,  "  Now,  a  man  came  up 
from  college  and  spoke  thus  "  ;  and,  like  a  college  man,  he 
spoke  rather  to  the  abstract  world  than  to  the  present.  He 
knew  no  more  of  the  people  who  actually  did  live  in  London 
/than  of  people  who  would  live  in  London,  and  there  was, 
\therefore,  no  reason  for  speaking  to  one  more  than  to  the 
other.  After  years  of  politics,  he  speaks  so  still.  He  looks 
pn  a  question  (he  says)  as  posterity  will  look  on  it ;  he 
appeals  from  this  to  future  generations  ;  he  regards  existing 
men  as  painful  prerequisites  of  great-grandchildren.  This 
seems  to  proceed,  as  has  been  said,  from  a  distant  and  un- 
impressible  nature.  But  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  it  has 
one  great  advantage  :  it  has  made  him  take^mins.  A  man 
who  speaks  to  people  a  thousand  years  off,  will  naturally 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  11 

speak  carefully  :  he  tries  to  be  heard  over  the  clang  of  ages, 
over  the  rumours  of  myriads.  Writing  for  posterity  is  like 
writing  on  foreign  post  paper  :  you  cannot  say  to  a  man  at 
Calcutta  what  you  would  say  to  a  man  at  Hackney ;  you 
think  "  the  yellow  man  is  a  very  long  way  off;  this  is  fine 
paper,  it  will  go  by  a  ship";  so  you  try  to  say  something 
worthy  of  the  ship,  something  noble,  which  will  keep  and 
travel.  Writers  like  Macaulay,  who  think  of  future  people, 
have  a  respect  for  future  people.  Each  sylTabjeJs  solemn^ 
each  word  distinct.  No  author  trained  to  periodical  writing ' 
has  so  little  of  its  slovenliness  and  its  imperfection. 

This  singularly  constant  contemplation  of  posterity  has 
coloured  his  estimate  of  social  characters.  He  has  no 
toleration  for  those  great  men  in  whom  a  lively  sensibility 
to  momentary  honours  has  prevailed  over  a  consistent 
reference  to  the  posthumous  tribunal.  He  is  justly  severe 
on  Lord  Bacon  : — 

"  In  his  library,  all  his  rare  powers  were  under  the  guidance  of  an 
honest  ambition,  of  an  enlarged  philanthropy,  of  a  sincere  love  of  truth. 
There  no  temptation  drew  him  away  from  the  right  course.  Thomas 
Aquinas  could  pay  no  fees,  Duns  Scotus  could  confer  no  peerages.  The 
'  Master  of  the  Sentences ' 1  had  no  rich  reversions  in  his  gift.  Far 
different  was  the  situation  of  the  great  philosopher  when  he  came  forth 
from  his  study  and  his  laboratory  to  mingle  with  the  crowds  which  filled 
the  galleries  of  Whitehall.  In  all  that  crowd  there  was  no  man  equally 
qualified  to  render  great  and  lasting  services  to  mankind.  But  in  all  that 
crowd  there  was  not  a  heart  more  set  on  things  which  no  man  ought  to 
suffer  to  be  necessary  to  his  happiness, — on  things  which  can  often  be 
obtained  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  integrity  and  honour.  To  be  the  leader 
of  the  human  race  in  the  career  of  improvement,  to  found  on  the  ruins  of 
ancient  intellectual  dynasties  a  more  prosperous  and  more  enduring 
empire,  to  be  revered  to  the  latest  generations  as  the  most  illustrious 
among  the  benefactors  of  mankind, — all  this  was  within  his  reach.  But 
all  this  availed  him  nothing,  while  some  quibbling  special  pleader  was 

1  Peter  the  Lombard,  author  of  a  famous  collection  of  "  Sentences," 
from  the  Church  fathers.  (Forrest  Morgan.) 


12  Literary  Studies. 


promoted  before  him  to  the  bench, — while  some  heavy  country  gentleman 
took  precedence  of  him  by  virtue  of  a  purchased  coronet, — while  some 
pander,  happy  in  a  fair  wife,  could  obtain  a  more  cordial  salute  from 
Buckingham, — while  some  buffoon,  versed  in  all  the  latest  scandal  of  the 
Court,  could  draw  a  louder  laugh  from  James." 

Yet  a  less  experience,  or  a  less  opportunity  of  experience, 
would  have  warned  a  mind  more  observant  that  the  bare 
desire  for  long  posthumous  renown  is  but  a  feeble  principle 
in  common  human  nature.  Bacon  had  as  much  of  it  as  most 
men.  The  keen  excitability  to  this  world's  temptations  must 
be  opposed  by  more  exciting  impulses,  by  more  retarding 
discouragements,  by  conscience,  by  religion,  by  fear.  If  you 
ivould  vanquish  earth,  you  must  "  invent  heaven  ".  It  is 
phe  fiction  of  a  cold  abstractedness  that  the  possible  respect 
{of  unseen  people  can  commonly  be  more  desired  than  the 
certain  homage  of  existing  people. 

In  a  more  conspicuous  manner  the  chill  nature  of  the  most 
brilliant  among  English  historians  is  shown  in  his  defective 
dealing  with  the  passionate  eras  of  our  history.  He  has 
never  been  attracted,  or  not  proportionally  attracted,  by  the 
singular  mixture  of  heroism  and  slavishness,  of  high  passion 
and  base  passion,  which  mark  the  Tudor  period.  The  defect 
is  apparent  in  his  treatment  of  a  period  on  which  he  has 
written  powerfully — the  time  of  the  civil  wars.  He  has 
never  in  the  highest  manner  appreciated  either  of  the  two 
great  characters — the  Puritan  and  the  Cavalier — which  are 
the  form  and  life  of  those  years.  What  historian,  indeed, 
has  ever  estimated  the  Cavalier  character  ?  There  is  Claren- 
don— the  grave,  rhetorical,  decorous  lawyer — piling  words, 
congealing  arguments, — very  stately,  a  little  grim.  There  is 
Hume — the  Scotch  metaphysician — who  has  made  out  the 
best  case  for  such  people  as  never  were,  for  a  Charles  who 
never  died,  for  a  Strafford  who  would  never  have  been 
attainted, — a  saving,  calculating  North-countryman, — fat, 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  13 

impassive, — who  lived  on  eightpence  a  day.  What  have 
these  people  to  do  with  an  enjoying  English  gentleman  ?  It 
is  easy  for  a  doctrinaire  to  bear  a  post-mortem  examination, — 
it  is  much  the  same  whether  he  be  alive  or  dead  ;  but  not  so 
with  those  who  live  during  their  life,  whose  essence  is  exist- 
ence, whose  being  is  inanimation.  There  seem  to  be  some 
characters  who  are  not  made  for  history,  as  there  are  some 
who  are  not  made  for  old  age.  A  Cavalier  is  always  young. 
The  buoyant  life  arises  before  us  rich  in  hope,  strong  in 
vigour,  irregular  in  action  ;  men  young  and  ardent,  framed  in 
the  "  prodigality  of  nature  '* ; x  open  to  every  enjoyment, 
alive  to  every  passion ;  eager,  impulsive ;  brave  without 
discipline;  noble  without  principle;  prizing  luxury,  despising 
danger,  capable  of  high  sentiment,  but  in  each  of  whom  the 

"  Addiction  was  to  courses  vain  ; 
His  companies  unlettered,  rude  and  shallow, 
His  hours  filled  up  with  riots,  banquets,  sports, 
And  never  noted  in  him  any  study, 
Any  retirement,  any  sequestration 
From  open  haunts  and  popularity."  2 

We  see  these  men  setting  forth  or  assembling  to  defend 
their  King  and  Church  •  and  we  see  it  without  surprise  ;  a 
rich  daring  loves  danger  ;  a  deep  excitability  likes  excite- 
ment. If  we  look  around  us,  we  may  see  what  is  analogous. 
Some  say  that  the  battle  of  the  Alma  was  won  by  the  "  unedu- 
cated gentry  "  ;  the  "uneducated  gentry"  would  be  Cavaliers 
now.  The  political  sentiment  is  part  of  the  character.  The 
essence  of  Toryism  is  enjoyment.  Talk  of  the  ways  of 
spreading  a  wholesome  Conservatism  throughout  this- 
country  :  give  painful  lectures,  distribute  weary  tracts  (and 
perhaps  this  is  as  well — you  may  be  able  to  give  an 
argumentative  answer  to  a  few  objections,  you  may  diffuse  a 
distinct  notion  of  the  dignified  dulness  of  politics) ;  but  as  far 

1  "  King  Richard  III.,"  i.  2.  2  "  Henry  V.,"  i.  i. 


14  Literary  Studies. 


as  communicating  and  establishing  your  creed  are  concerned 
t — try  a  little  pleasure.  The  way  to  keep  up  old  customs  is, 
(to  enjoy  old  customs ;  the  way  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
Wesent  state  of  things  is,  to  enjoy  that  state  of  things.  Over 
me  "  Cavalier "  mind  this  world  passes  with  a  thrill  of 
•delight ;  there  is  an  exultation  in  a  daily  event,  zest  in  the 
"  regular  thing,"  joy  at  an  old  feast.  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  an 
example  of  this.  Every  habit  and  practice  of  old  Scotland 
was  inseparably  in  his  mind  associated  with  genial  enjoy- 
ment. To  propose  to  touch  one  of  her  institutions,  to  abolish 
one  of  those  practices,  was  to  touch  a  personal  pleasure — a 
point  on  which  his  mind  reposed,  a  thing  of  memory  and 
hope.  So  long  as  this  world  is  this  world,  will  a  buoyant 
life  be  the  proper  source  of  an  animated  Conservatism.  The 
"  Church-and-King  "  enthusiasm  has  even  a  deeper  connec- 
tion with  the  Cavaliers.  Carlyle  has  said,  in  his  vivid  way, 
"  Two  or  three  young  gentlemen  have  said,  '  Go  to,  I  will 
make  a  religion  '  ".  This  is  the  exact  opposite  of  what  the 
irregular,  enjoying  man  can  think  or  conceive.  What!  is  he, 
with  his  untrained  mind  and  his  changeful  heart  and  his 
ruleless  practice,  to  create  a  creed  ?  Is  the  gushing  life  to 
be  asked  to  construct  a  cistern  ?  Is  the  varying  heart  to  be 
'its  own  master,  the  evil  practice  its  own  guide  ?  Sooner  will 
a  ship  invent  its  own  rudder,  devise  its  own  pilot,  than  the 
gager  being  will  find  out  the  doctrine  which  is  to  restrain 
him.  The  very  intellect  is  a  type  of  the  confusion  of  the 
soul.  It  has  little  arguments  on  a  thousand  subjects,  hear- 
say sayings,  original  flashes,  small  and  bright,  struck  from 
the  heedless  mind  by  the  strong  impact  of  the  world.  And 
it  has  nothing  else.  It  has  no  systematic  knowledge  ;  it  has 
hatred  of  regular  attention.  What  can  an  understanding 

f  this  sort  do  with  refined  questioning  or  subtle  investiga- 
tion? It  is  obliged  in  a  sense  by  its  very  nature  to  take  what 

omes ;  it  is  overshadowed  in  a  manner  by  the  religion  to 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  15 

which  it  is  born ;  its  conscience  tells  it  that  it  owes  obedience 
to  something  ;  it  craves  to  worship  something ;  that  some- 
thing, in  both  cases,  it  takes  from  the  past.  "  Thou  hast  not 
chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  thee,"  might  his  faith  say  to 
a  believer  of  this  kind.  A  certain  bigotry  is  altogether  natural 
to  him.  His  creed  seems  to  him  a  primitive  fact,  as  certain 
and  evident  as  the  stars.  The  political  faith  (for  it  is  a  faith) 
of  these  persons  is  of  a  kind  analogous.  The  virtue  on 
loyalty  assumes  in  them  a  passionate  aspect,  and  overflows/ 
as  it  were,  all  the  intellect  which  belongs  to  the  topic.  This 
virtue,  this  need  of  our  nature,  arises,  as  political  philoso- 
phers tell  us,  from  the  conscious  necessity  which  man  is 
under  of  obeying  an  external  moral  rule.  We  feel  that  we 
are  by  nature  and  by  the  constitution  of  all  things  under  an 
obligation  to  conform  to  a  certain  standard,  and  we«sejsir"to 
find  or  to  establish  in  the  sphere  without,  an  authority  which 
shall  enforce  it,  shall  aid  us  in  compelling  others  and  also  in 
mastering  ourselves.  When  a  man  impressed  with  this 
principle  comes  in  contact  with  the  institution  of  civil 
government  as  it  now  exists  and  as  it  has  always  existed,  h< 
finds  what  he  wants — he  discovers  an  authority ;  and  he  feelf 
bound  to  submit  to  it.  We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  all 
this  takes  place  distinctly  and  consciously  in  the  mind  of  the 
person  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  class  of  minds  most  subject  to 
its  influence  are  precisely  those  which  have  in  general  the 
least  defined  and  accurate  consciousness  of  their  own  opera- 
tions, or  of  what  befalls  them.  In  matter  of  fact,  they  find 
themselves  under  the  control  of  laws  and  of  a  polity  from  the 
earliest  moment  that  they  can  remember,  and  they  obey  it 
from  habit  and  custom  years  before  they  know  why.  Only 
in  later  life,  when  distinct  thought  is  from  an  outward  occur- 
rence forced  upon  them,  do  they  feel  the  necessity  of  some 
such  power ;  and  in  proportion  to  their  passionate  and 
impulsive  disposition  they  feel  it  the  more.  The  law  has  in 


16  Literary  Stiidies. 


less  degree  on  them  the  same  effect  which  military  disci- 
pline has  in  a  greater.  It  braces  them  to  defined  duties,  and 
ubjects  them  to  a  known  authority.  Quieter  minds  find  this 
luthority  in  an  internal  conscience ;  but  in  riotous  natures 
its  still  small  voice  is  lost  if  it  be  not  echoed  in  loud  harsh 
tones  from  the  firm  and  oylef-^vorld  : — 

"  Their  breath  is  agitation,  and  their  life 
A  storm  whereon  they  ride  ",1 

From  without  they  crave  a  bridle  and  a  curb.  The  doctrine 
of  non-resistance  is  no  accident  of  the  Cavalier  character, 
though  it  seems  at  first  sight  singular  in  an  eager,  tumultuous 
disposition.  So  inconsistent  is  human  nature,  that  it  pro- 
ceeds from  the  very  extremity  of  that  tumult.  They  know 
that  they  cannot  allow  themselves  to  question  the  authority 
which  is  upon  them ;  they  feel  its  necessity  too  acutely,  their 
intellect  is  untrained  in  subtle  disquisitions,  their  conscience 
fluctuating,  their  passions  rising.  They  are  sure  that  if  they 
once  depart  from  that  authority,  their  whole  soul  will  be  in 
iianarchy.  As  a  riotous  state  tends  to  fall  under  a  martial 
^tyranny,  a  passionate  mind  tends  to  subject  itself  to  an 
exilinsic  law — to  enslave  itself  to  an  outward  discipline. 
"  That  is  what  the  king  says,  boy,  and  that  was  ever  enough 
for  Sir  Henry  Lee."  An  hereditary  monarch  is,  indeed,  the 
very  embodiment  of  this  principle.  The  authority  is  so  de- 
fined, so  clearly  vested,  so  evidently  intelligible  ;  it  descends 
so  distinctly  from  the  past,  it  is  imposed  so  conspicu- 
ously from  without.  Anything  free  refers  to  the  people  ; 
anything  elected  seems  self-chosen.  "  The  divinity  that 
doth  hedge  a  king"  2  consists  in  his  evidently  representing 
an  unmade,  unchosen,  hereditary  duty. 

The  greatness  of  this  character  is  not  in  Macaulay's  way, 
and  its  faults  are.     Its  license  affronts  him  ;  its  riot  alienates 

1 "  Chifde  Harold,"  canto  iii.,  verse  44.  s  "  Hamlet,"  iv.  5. 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  17 

him.  He  is  for  ever  contrasting  the  dissoluteness  of  Prince 
Rupert's  Horse  with  the  restraint  of  Cromwell's  pikemen.  A 
deep  enjoying  nature  finds  no  sympathy.  The  brilliant  style 
passes  forward  :  we  dwell  on  its  brilliancy,  but  it  is  cold.i 
Macaulay  has  no  tears  for  that  warm  life,  no  tenderness  fcjrJ 
that  extinct  joy.  The  ignorance  of  the  Cavalier,  too,  moves 
his  wrath  :  "  They  were  ignorant  of  what  every  schoolgirl 
knows".  Their  loyalty  to  their  sovereign  is  the  devotion  of 
the  Egyptians  to  the  god  Apis,  who  selected  a  "  calf  to 
adore  ".  Their  non-resistance  offends  the  philosopher :  their 
license  is  commented  on  with  the  tone  of  a  precisian.  Their 
indecorum  does  not  suit  the  dignity  of  the  narrator.  Their 
rich  free  nature  is  unappreciated ;  the  tingling  intensity  ofj 
their  joy  is  unnoticed.  In  a  word,  there  is  something  of  the 
schoolboy  about  the  Cavalier — there  is  somewhat  of  a  schooj 
master  about  the  historian. 

It  might  be  thought,  at  first  sight,  that  the  insensibility 
and  coldness  which  are  unfavourable  to  the  appreciation  of 
the  Cavalier  would  be  particularly  favourable  to  that  of  the 
Puritan.  Some  may  say  that  a  natural  aloofness  from 
things  earthly  would  dispose  a  man  to  the  doctrines  of  a  sect 
which  enjoins  above  all  other  commandments  abstinence  and 
aloofness  from  those  things.  In  Macaulay's  case  it  certainly 
has  had  no  such  consequence.  He  was  bred  up  in  the  circle 
which  more  than  any  other  has  resembled  that  of  the  greatest 
and  best  Puritans — in  the  circle  which  has  presented  the 
evangelical  doctrine  in  its  most  influential  and  celebrated, 
and  not  its  least  genial  form.  Yet  he  has  revolted  against 
it.  "  The  bray  of  Exeter  Hall  "  is  a  phrase  which  has 
become  celebrated  :  it  is  an  odd  one  for  his  father's  sonl 
The  whole  course  of  his  personal  fortunes,  the  entire  scope 
of  his  historical  narrative,  show  an  utter  want  of  sympathy 
with  the  Puritan  disposition.  It  would  be  idle  to  quote 
passages;  it  will  be  enough  to  recollect  the  contrast  between 

VOL.  II.  2 


i8  Literary  Studies. 


he  estimate — say,  of  Cromwell — by  Carlyle  and  that  by 
tfacaulay,  to  be  aware  of  the  enormous 'discrepancy.  The 
me's  manner  evinces  an  instinctive  sympathy,  the  other's 
in  instinctive  aversion. 

We  believe  that  this  is  but  a  consequence  of  the  same 

impassibility  of  nature  which  we  have  said  so  much  of.     M. 

de  Montalembert,  in  a  striking  lloge  on  a  French  historian  J 

— a  man  of  the  Southey  type — after  speaking  of  his  life  in 

Paris  during  youth  (a  youth  cast  in  the  early  and  exciting 

years  of  the  first  Revolution,  and  of  the  prelude  to  it),  and 

graphically  portraying  a  man  subject  to  scepticism,  but  not 

given  to  vice  ;  staid  in  habits,  but  unbelieving  in  opinion  ; 

without  faith  and  without  irregularity, — winds  up  the  whole 

by  the  sentence,  that  "he  was  hardened  at  once  against  good 

and  evil".     In  his  view,  the  insensibility  which  was  a  guard 

against  exterior  temptation  was  also  a  hindrance  to  inward 

belief:  and  there  is  a  philosophy  in  this.     The  nature  of  man 

s  not  two  things,  but  one  thing.      We  have  not  one  set  of 

affections,  hopes,  sensibilities,  to  be  affected  by  the  present 

vorld,   and   another  and   a  different  to  be  affected   by  the 

nvisible  world  :  we  are  moved  by  grandeur,  or  we  are  not ; 

ve  are  stirred  by  sublimity,  or  we  are  not ;  we  hunger  after 

'ighteousness,  or  we  do  not ;   we  hate  vice,  or  we  do  not ; 

ive  are  passionate,  or  not  passionate  ;  loving,  or  not  loving ; 

cold,  or  not  cold;  our  heart  is  dull,  or  it  is  wakeful;  our  soul 

is  alive,  or  it  is  dead.     Deep  under  the  surface  of  the  intellect 

ies  the  stratum  of  the  passions,   of  the  intense,  peculiar, 

imple  impulses  which  constitute  the  heart  of  man  ;  there  is 

he  eager  essence,  the  primitive  desiring  being.     What  stirs 

hisjatent  being  we  know.     In  general  it  is  stirred  by  every- 

1  Droz  (author  of  the  History  of  Louis  XIV.,  etc.),  whom  Monta- 
lembert succeeded  in  the  Academic  Franchise,  and  whose  eloge  he 
pronounced,  according  to  custom,  on  5th  December,  1852.  (Forrest 
Morgan.) 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  19 

thing.  Sluggish  natures  are  stirred  little,  wild  natures  are 
stirred  much  :  but  all  are  stirred  somewhat.  It  is  not  im- 
portant whether  the  object  be  in  the  visible  or  invisible 
world :  whoso  loves  what  he  has  seen,  will  love  what  he  has 
not  seen  ;  whoso  hates  what  he  has  seen,  will  hate  what  he 
has  not  seen.  Creation  is,  as  it  were,  but  the  garment  of  the 
Creator  :  whoever  is  blind  to  the  beauty  on  its  surface,  will 
be  insensible  to  the  beauty  beneath  ;  whoso  is  dead  to  the 
sublimity  before  his  senses,  will  be  dull  to  that  which  he 
imagines  ;  whoso  is  untouched  by  the  visible  man,  will  be 
unmoved  by  the  invisible  God.  These  are  no  new  ideas;  and 
the  conspicuous  evidence  of  history  confirms  them.  Every- 
where the  deep  religious  organisation  has  been  deeply  sensi- 
tive to  this  world.  If  we  compare  what  are  called  sacred  and 
profane  literatures,  the  depth  of  human  affection  is  deeper 
in  the  sacred.  A  warmth  as  of  life  is  on  the  Hebrew,  a  chill 
as  of  marble  is  on  the  Greek.  In  Jewish  history  the  most 
tenderly  religious  character  is  the  most  sensitive  to  earth. 
Along  every  lyric  of  the  Psalmist  thrills  a  deep  spirit  of 
human  enjoyment ;  he  was  alive  as  a  child  to  the  simple 
aspects  of  the  world  ;  the  very  errors  of  his  mingled  career 
are  but  those  to  which  the  open,  enjoying  character  is  most 
prone  ;  its  principle,  so  to  speak,  was  a  tremulous  passion 
for  that  which  he  had  seen,  as  well  as  that  which  he  had  not 
seen.  There  is  no  paradox,  therefore,  in  saying  that  the 
same  character  which  least  appreciates  the  impulsive  a 
ardent  Cavalier  is  also  the  most  likely  not  to  appreciate  t 
warm  zeal  of  an  overpowering  devotion. 

Some  years  ago  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  show  at 
length  that  the  Puritans  had  such  a  devotion.  The  notion 
had  been  that  they  were  fanatics,  who  simulated  zeal,  and 
hypocrites,  who  misquoted  the  Old  Testament.  A  new  era 
has  arrived  ;  one  of  the  great  discoveries  which  the  com- 
petition of  authors  has  introduced  into  historical  researches 


2O  Literary  Studies. 


has  attained  a  singular  popularity.  Times  are  changed. 
We  are  rather  now,  in  general,  in  danger  of  holding  too  high 
an  estimate  of  the  puritanical  character  than  a  too  low  or 
contemptuous  one.  Among  the  disciples  of  Carlyle  it  is 
considered  that  having  been  a  Puritan  is  the  next  best  thing 
to  having  been  in  Germany.  But  though  we  cannot  sym- 
pathise with  everything  that  the  expounders  of  the  new 
theory  allege,  and  though  we  should  not  select  for  praise 
the  exact  peculiarities  most  agreeable  to  the  slightly  grim 
"  gospel  of  earnestness,"  we  acknowledge  the  great  service 
which  they  have  rendered  to  English  history.  No  one  will 
.now  ever  overlook,  that  in  the  greater,  in  the  original  Puritans 
V — in  Cromwell,  for  example — the  whole  basis  of  the  character 
jvasji  passionate,  deep,  rich,  religious  organisation. 

This  is  not  in  Macaulay's  way.  It  is  not  that  he  is 
sceptical ;  far  from  it.  "  Divines  of  all  persuasions,"  he 
tells  us,  "are  agreed  that  there  is  a  religion";  and  he 
acquiesces  in  their  teaching.  But  hehas  QO  passionate 
self-questionings,  no  indomitablejjear^_no_asking  perplexities. 
He  is  probably  pleased  at  the  exemption.  He  has  praised 
Bacon  for  a  similar  want  of  interest.  "  Nor  did  he  ever 
meddle  with  those  enigmas  which  have  puzzled  hundreds 
of  generations,  and  will  puzzle  hundreds  more.  He  said 
nothing  about  the  grounds  of  moral  obligation,  or  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will.  He  had  no  inclination  to 
employ  himself  in  labours  resembling  those  of  the  damned 
in  the  Grecian  Tartarus — to  spin  for  ever  en  the  same  wheel 
round  the  same  pivot.  He  lived  in  an  age  in  which  disputes 
on  the  most  subtle  points  of  divinity  excited  an  intense  in- 
terest throughout  Europe ;  and  nowhere  more  than  in 
England.  He  was  placed  in  the  very  thick  of  the  conflict. 
He  was  in  power  at  the  time  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and 
must  for  months  have  been  daily  deafened  with  talk  about 
election,  reprobation,  and  final  perseverance.  Yet  we  do  not 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  21 

remember  a  line  in  his  works  from  which  it  can  be  inferred 
that  he  was  either  a  Calvinist  or  an  Arminian.     While  the 
world  was  resounding  with  the  noise  of  a  disputatious  philo- 
sophy and  a  disputatious  theology,  the  Baconian  school,  like 
Allworthy  seated  between  Square  and  Thwackum,1  preserved 
a  calm  neutrality, — half- scornful,  half-benevolent, — and,  con- 
tent with  adding  to  the  sum  of  practical  good,  left  the  war  of 
words  to  those  who  liked  it."      This  may  be  the  writing  of // 
good  sense,  but  it  is  not  the  expression  of  an  anxious  or ' 
passionate  religious  nature. 

Such  is  the  explanation  of  Macaulay's  not  prizing  so 
highly  as  he  should  prize  the  essential  excellences  of  the 
Puritan  character.  He  is  defective  in  the  one  point  in 
which  they  were  very  great ;  he  is  eminent  in  the  very  point 
in  which  they  were  most  defective.  A  spirit  of  easy  cheer- 
fulness pervades  his  writings,  a  pleasant  geniality  overflows 
his  history:  the  rigid  asceticism,  the  pain  for  pain's  sake, 
of  the  Puritan  is  altogether  alien  to  him.  Retribution  he 
would  deny;  sin  is  hardly  a  part  of  his  creed.  His  religion 
is  one  of  thanksgiving.  His  notion  of  philosophy — it  would 
be  a  better  notion  of  his  own  writing — is  illustrans  commoda 
vitce. 

The  English  Revolution  is  the  very  topic  for  a  person  of 
this  character.  It  is  eminently  an  unirmoassionejLmovement. 
It  requires  no  appreciation  of  the  Cavalier  or  of  the  zealot ; 
no  sympathy  with  the  romance  of  this  world ;  no  inclination 
to  pass  beyond,  and  absorb  the  mind's  energies  in  another. 
It  had  neither  the  rough  enthusiasm  of  barbarism  noFthe 
delicate  grace  of  high  civilisation  :  the  men  who  conducted 
it  had  neither  the  deep  spirit  of  Cromwell's  Puritans  nor  the 
chivalric  loyalty  of  the  enjoying  English  gentleman.  They 
were  hard-headed,  sensible  men,  who  knew  that  politics 
were  a  kind  of  business,  that  the  essence  of  business  is 
1  In  Fielding's  Tom  Jones, 


22  Literary  Studies. 


compromise,  of  practicality  concession.  They  drove  no 
theory  to  excess ;  for  they  had  no  theory.  Their  passions 
did  not  hurry  them  away ;  for  their  temperament  was  still, 
their  reason  calculating  and  calm.  Locke  is  the  type  of  the 
best  character  of  his  era.  There  is  nothing  in  him  which  a 
historian  such  as  we  have  described  could  fail  to  comprehend, 
or  could  not  sympathise  with  when  he  did  comprehend.  He 
was  the  very  reverse  of  a  Cavalier;  he  came  of  a  Puritan  stock  ; 
he  retained  through  life  a  kind  of  chilled  Puritanism  ;  he  had 
nothing  of  its  excessive,  overpowering,  interior  zeal,  but 
he  retained  the  formal  decorum  which  it  had  given  to  the 
manners,  the  solid  earnestness  of  its  intellect,  the  heavy 
respectability  of  its  character.  In  all  the  nations  across 
which  Puritanism  has  passed  you  may  notice  something  of 
ts  indifference  to  this  world's  lighter  enjoyments ;  no  one  of 
them  has  been  quite  able  to  retain  its  singular  interest  in 
What  is  beyond  the  veil  of  time  and  sense.  The  generation 
:o  which  we  owe  our  Revolution  was  in  the  first  stage  of  the 
lescent.  Locke  thought  a  zealot  a  dangerous  person,  and  a 
poet  little  better  than  a  rascal.  It  has  been  said,  with 
perhaps  an  allusion  to  Macaulay,  that  our  historians  have 
held  that  "all  the  people  who  lived  before  1688  were  either 
knaves  or  fools  ".  This  is,  of  course,  an  exaggeration  ;  but 
those  who  have  considered  what  sort  of  a  person  a  historian 
is  likely  to  be,  will  not  be  surprised  at  his  preference  for  the 
people  of  that  era.  They  had  the  equable  sense  which  he 
appreciates;  they  had  not  the  deep  animated  passions  to 
which  his  nature  is  insensible. 

Yet,  though  Macaulay  shares  in  the  common  tempera- 
ment of  historians,  and  in  the  sympathy  with,  and  appreciation 
of,  the  characters  most  congenial  to  that  temperament,  he  is 
singularly  contrasted  with  them  in  one  respect — he_  has  a 
vivid  fancy,  they  have  a  dull_jane.  History  is  generally 
written  on  the  principle  that  huoiatulife  is  a  transaction  ; 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  23 

that  people  come  to  it  with  defined  intentions  and  a  calm 
self-possessed  air,  as  stockjobbers  would  buy  "omnium," 
as  timber-merchants  buy  "best-middling";  people  are  alike, 
and  things  are  alike ;  everything  is  a  little  dull,  every  one  a 
little  slow;  manners  are  not  depicted,  traits  are  not  noticed; 
the  narrative  is  confined  to  those  great  transactions  which 
can  be  understood  without  any  imaginative  delineation  of 
their  accompaniments.  There  are  two  kinds  of  things — 
those  which  you  need  only  to  understand,  and  those  which 
you  need  also  to  imagine.  That  a  man  bought  nine  hun- 
dredweight of  hops  is  an  intelligible  idea — you  do  not  want 
the  hops  delineated  or  the  man  described ;  that  he  went  into 
society  suggests  an  inquiry — you  want  to  know  what  the 
society  was  like,  and  how  far  he  was  fitted  to  be  there.  The 
great  business  transactions  of  the  political  world  are  of  the 
intelligible  description.  Macaulay  has  himself  said  : — 

"  A  history,  in  which  every  particular  incident  may  be  true,  may  on 
the  whole  be  false.  The  circumstances  which  have  most  influence  on  the 
happiness  of  mankind,  the  changes  of  manners  and  morals,  the  transition 
of  communities  from  poverty  to  wealth,  from  knowledge  to  ignorance, 
from  ferocity  to  humanity, — these  are,  for  the  most  part,  noiseless  revolu- 
tions. Their  progress  is  rarely  indicated  by  what  historians  are  pleased 
to  call  important  events.  They  are  not  achieved  by  armies,  or  enacted  by 
senates.  They  are  sanctioned  by  no  treaties,  and  recorded  in  no  archives 
They  are  carried  on  in  every  school,  in  every  church,  behind  ten  thousand 
counters,  at  ten  thousand  firesides.  The  upper  current  of  society  presents 
no  certain  criterion  by  which  we  can  judge  of  the  direction  in  which  the 
undercurrent  flows.  We  read  of  defeats  and  victories ;  but  we  know 
that  nations  may  be  miserable  amidst  victories,  and  prosperous  amidst 
defeats.  We  read  of  the  fall  of  wise  ministers,  and  of  the  rise  of  profli- 
gate favourites  ;  but  we  must  remember  how  small  a  proportion  the  good 
or  evil  effected  by  a  single  statesman  can  bear  to  the  good  or  evil  of  a 
great  social  system."  1 

But  of  this  sluggishness  of  imagination  he  has  certainly  no 

1  Essay  on  "  History".  All  the  other  quotations  on  the  next  page  are 
from  the  same  source. 


24  Literary  Studies. 


trace  himself.  He  is  willing  to  be  "  behind  ten  thousand 
counters,"  to  be  a  guest  "  at  ten  thousand  firesides  ".  He  is 
willing  to  see  "  ordinary  men  as  they  appear  in  their  ordinary 
business  and  in  their  ordinary  pleasures ".  He  has  no 
objection  to  "  mingle  in  the  crowds  of  the  Exchange  and  the 
coffee-house  ".  He  would  "  obtain  admittance  to  the  con- 
vivial table  and  the  domestic  hearth  ".  So  far  as  his  dignity 
will  permit,  "  he  will  bear  with,  vulgar  expressions  ".  And  a 
singular  efficacy  of  fancy  gives  him  the  power  to  do  so. 
pome  portion  of  the  essence  of  human  nature  is  concealed 
fromjjim  ;  but  all  its  accessories  are  at  his  command.  He 
delineates  any  trait;  he  can  paint,  and  justly  paint,  any 
manners  he  chooses. 

"A  perfect  historian,"  he  tells  us,  "  is  he  in  whose  work  the  character 
and  spirit  of  an  age  is  exhibited  in  miniature.  He  relates  no  fact,  he 
attributes  no  expression  to  his  characters,  which  is  not  authenticated  by 
sufficient  testimony ;  but,  by  judicious  selection,  rejection,  and  arrange- 
ment, he  gives  to  truth  those  attractions  which  have  been  usurped  by 
fiction.  In  his  narrative  a  due  subordination  is  observed — some  transac- 
tions are  prominent,  others  retire  ;  but  the  scale  on  which  he  represents 
them  is  increased  or  diminished,  not  according  to  the  dignity  of  the 
persons  concerned  in  them,  but  according  to  the  degree  in  which  they 
elucidate  the  condition  of  society  and  the  nature  of  man.  He  shows  us 
the  court,  the  camp,  and  the  senate  ;  but  he  shows  us  also  the  nation.  He 
considers  no  anecdote,  no  peculiarity  of  manner,  no  familiar  saying,  as 
i  too  insignificant  for  his  notice,  which  is  not  too  insignificant  to  illustrate 
I  the  operation  of  laws,  of  religion,  and  of  education,  and  to  mark  the  pro- 
I  gress  of  the  human  mind.  Men  will  not  merely  be  described,  but  will  be 
^nad£. intimately  known  to  us.  The  changes  of  manners  will  be  indicated, 
not  merely  by  a  few  general  phrases,  or  a  few  extracts  from  statistical 
documents,  but  by  appropriate  images  presented  in  every  line.  If  a  man, 
such  as  we  are  supposing,  should  write  the  history  of  England,  he  would 
assuredly  not  omit  the  battles,  the  sieges,  the  negotiations,  the  seditions, 
the  ministerial  changes  ;  but  with  these  he  would  intersperse  the  details 
which  are  the  charm  of  historical  romances.  At  Lincoln  Cathedral  there 
is  a  beautiful  painted  window,  which  was  made  by  an  apprentice  out  of 
the  pieces  of  glass  which  had  been  rejected  by  his  master.  It  is  so  far 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  25 

superior  to  every  other  in  the  church,  that,  according  to  the  tradition,  the 
vanquished  artist  killed  himself  from  mortification.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in 
the  same  manner,  has  used  those  fragments  of  truth  which  historians  have 
scornfully  thrown  behind  them  in  a  manner  which  may  well  excite  their 
envy.  He  has  constructed  out  of  their  gleanings  works  which,  even  con- 
sidered as  histories,  are  scarcely  less  valuable  than  theirs.  But  a  truly 
great  historian  would  reclaim  those  materials  which  the  novelist  has 
appropriated.  The  history  of  the  Government,  and  the  history  of  the 
people,  would  be  exhibited  in  that  mode  in  which  alone  they  can  be 
exhibited  justly,  in  inseparable  conjunction  and  intermixture.  We  should 
not  then  have  to  look  for  the  wars  and  votes  of  the  Puritans  in  Clarendon, 
and  for  their  phraseology  in  Old  Mortality  ;  for  one  half  of  King  James  in 
Hume,  and  for  the  other  half  in  the  Fortunes  of  Nigel."  x 

So  far  as  the  graphic  description  of  exterior  life  goes,  Jie^lwrs 
completely  realised  his  idea. 

This  union  of  a  flowing  fancy  with  an  insensible  organi- 
sation is  very  rare.  In  general,  a  delicate  fancy  is  joined 
with  a  poetic  organisation.  Exactly  why,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  explain.  It  is  for  metaphysicians  in  large  volumes 
to  explain  the  genesis  of  the  human  faculties  ;  but,  as  a  fact, 
it  seems  to  be  clear  that,  for  the  most  part,  imaginative  men 
are  the  most  sensitive  to  the  poetic  side  of  human  life  and 
natural  scenery.  They  are  drawn  by  a  strong  instinct  to 
what  is  sublime,  grand,  and  beautiful.  They  do  not  care  for 
the  coarse  business  of  life.  They  dislike  to  be  cursed  with 
its  ordinary  cares.  Their  nature  is  vivid  ;  it  is  interested  by 
all  which  naturally  interests  ;  it  dwells  on  the  great,  the 
graceful,  and  the  grand.  On  this  account  it  naturally  runs 
away  from  history.  The  very  name  of  it  is  too  oppressive. 
Are  not  all  such  works  written  in  the  Index  Expurgatorius 
of  the  genial  satirist  as  works  which  it  was  impossible  to 
read  ?  ~  The  coarse  and  cumbrous  matter  revolts  the  soul  of 
the  fine  and  fanciful  voluptuary.  Take  it  as  you  will,  human 

1  Essay  on  "  History  ". 

2  Lamb :  Detached  Thoughts  on  Books  and  Reading. 


26  Literary  Studies. 


life  is  like  the  earth  on  which  man  dwells.  There  are 
exquisite  beauties,  grand  imposing  objects,  scattered  here  and 
there  ;  but  the  spaces  between  these  are  wide  ;  the  mass  of 
common  clay  is  huge  ;  the  dead  level  of  vacant  life,  of  com- 
monplace geography,  is  immense.  The  poetic  nature  cannot 
)ear  the  preponderance  ;  it  seeks  relief  in  selected  scenes,  in 
Special  topics,  in  favourite  beauties.  History,  which  is  the 
ecord  of  human  existence,  is  a  faithful  representative  of  it, 
it  least  in  this  :  the  poetic  mind  cannot  bear  the  weight  of 
ts  narrations  and  the  commonplaceness  of  its  events. 

(This  peculiarity  of  character  gives  to  Macaulay's  writing 
on6  of  its  most  curious  characteristics.  He  throws  over 
matters  which  are  in  their  nature  dry  and  dull, — transactions 
— budgets — bills, — the  chaim-ofJkncy  which  a  poetical  mind 
employs  to  enhance  and  se_t_fbrth  the  charm  of  what  is 
beautiful.  An  attractive  style  is  generally  devoted  to  what  is 
irrrtsen  specially  attractive;  here  it  is  devoted  to  subjects 
which  are  often  unattractive,  are  sometimes  even  repelling, 
at  the  best  are  commonly  neutral,  not  inviting  attention,  if 
they  do  not  excite  dislike.  In  these  new  volumes  there  is  a 
currency  reform,  pages  on  Scotch  Presbyterianism,  a  heap  of 
Parliamentary  debates.  Who  could  be  expected  to  make 
anything  interesting  of  such  topics  ?  It  is  not  cheerful  to 
read  in  the  morning  papers  the  debates  of  yesterday,  though 
they  happened  last  night ;  we  cannot  like  a  Calvinistic 
divine  when  we  see  him  in  the  pulpit ;  it  is  awful  to  read  on 
the  currency,  even  when  it  concerns  the  bank-notes  which 
we  use.  How,  then,  can  we  care  for  a  narrative  when  the 
divine  is  dead,  the  shillings  extinct,  the  whole  topic  of  the 
.ebate  forgotten  and  passed  away  ?  Yet  such  is  the  power 
style,  so  great  is  the  charm  of  very  skilful  words,  of  narra- 
lon  which  is  always  passing  forward,  of  illustration  which 
ilways  hits  the  mark,  that  such  subjects  as  these  not  only 
>ecome  interesting,  but  very  interesting.  The  proof  is 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  27 

evident.  No  book  is  so  sought  after.  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  said  "  all  members  of  Parliament  had  read  it  ". 
What  other  books  could  ever  be  fancied  to  have  been  read  by 
them  ?  A  county  member — a  real  county  member — hardly 
reads  two  volumes  per  existence.  Years  ago  Macaulay  said 
a  History  of  England  might  become  more  in  demand  at  the 
circulating  libraries  than  the  last  novel.  He  has  actually 
made  his  words  true.  It  is  no  longer  a  phrase  of  rhetoric,  it 
is  a  simple  fact. 

The  explanation  of  this  remarkable  notoriety  is,  the  con- 
trast of  the  topic  and  the  treatment.  Those  who  read  for  the 
sake  of  entertainment  are  attracted  by  the  one ;  those  who 
read  for  the  sake  of  instruction  are  attracted  by  the  other. 
Macaulay  has  something  that  suits  the  readers  of  Mr. 
Hallam  ;  he  has  something  which  will  please  the  readers  of 
Mr.  Thackeray.  The  first  wonder  to  find  themselves  reading 
such  a  style;  the  last  are  astonished  at  reading  on  such 
topics — at  finding  themselves  studying  by  casualty.  This 
marks  the  author.  Only  a  buoyant  fancy  and  an  impassive 
temperament  could  produce  a  book  so  combining  weight  with 
levity. 

Something  similar  may  be  remarked  of  the  writings  of  a 
still  greater  man — of  Edmund  Burke.  The  contrast  between 
the  manner  of  his  characteristic  writings  and  their  matter  is 
very  remarkable.  He  too  threw  over  the  detail  of  business 
and  of  politics  those  graces  and  attractions  of  manner  which 
seem  in  some  sort  inconsistent  with  them ;  which  are  adapted 
for  topics  more  intrinsically  sublime  and  beautiful.  It  was 
for  this  reason  that  Hazlitt  asserted  that  "  no  woman  ever 
cared  for  Burke's  writings  ".  The  matter,  he  said,  was 
"hard  and  dry,"  and  no  superficial  glitter  of  eloquence  could 
make  it  agreeable  to  those  who  liked  what  is,  in  its  very 
nature,  fine  and  delicate.  The  charm  of  exquisite  narratiorl 
has,  in  a  great  degree,  in  Macaulay's  case,  supplied  thq 


28  Literary  Studies. 


deficiency ;  but  it  may  be  perhaps  remarked,  that  some  trace 
of  the  same  phenomenon  has  again  occurred,  from  similar 
causes,  and  that  his  popularity,  though  great  among  both 
sexes,  is  in  some  sense  more  masculine  than  feminine. 
The  absence  of  this  charm  of  narration,  to  which  accom- 
plished women  are,  it  would  seem,  peculiarly  sensitive,  is 
very  characteristic  of  Burke.  His  mind  was  the  reverse  of 
historical.  Although  he  had  rather  a  coarse,  incondite  tem- 
perament, not  finely  susceptible  to  the  best  influences,  to  the 
most  exquisite  beauties  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  he 
yet  lived  in  that  world  thoroughly  and  completely.  He  did 
not  take  an  interest,  as  a  poet  does,  in  the  sublime,  because 
it  is  sublime,  in  the  beautiful,  because  it  is  beautiful;  but  he 
had  the  passions  of  more  ordinary  men  in  a  degree,  and  of 
an  intensity,  which  ordinary  men  may  be  most  thankful  that 
they  have  not.  In  no  one  has  the  intense  faculty  of  intellec- 
tual hatred — the  hatred  which  the  absolute  dogmatist  has  for 
those  in  whom  he  incarnates  and  personifies  the  opposing 
dogma — been  fiercer  or  stronger ;  in  no  one  has  the  intense 
ambition  to  rule  and  govern,  —  in  scarcely  any  one  has  the 
daily  ambition  of  the  daily  politician  been  fiercer  and  stronger: 
he,  if  any  man,  cast  himself  upon  his  time.  After  one  of  his 
speeches,  peruse  one  of  Macaulay's  :  you  seem  transported 
to  another  sphere.  The  fierce  living  interest  of  the  one 
dontrasts  with  the  cold  rhetorical  interest  of  the  other ;  you 
<  re  in  a  different  part  of  the  animal  kingdom  ;  you  have  left 
t  ic  viviparous  intellect ;  you  have  left  products  warm  and 
struggling  with  hasty  life  ;  you  have  reached  the  oviparous, 
and  products  smooth  and  polished,  cold  and  stately. 

In  addition  to  this  impassive  nature,  inclining  him  to 
write  on  past  transactions — to  this  fancy,  enabling  him  to 
adorn  and  describe  them  —  Macaulay  has  a  marvellous 
memory  to  recall  them  ;  and  what  we  may  call  the  Scotch 
intellect,  enabling  him  to  conceive  them.  The  memory 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay. 


is  his  most  obvious  power.  An  enormous  reading  seems 
always  present  to  him.  No  effort  seems  wanted  —  no  mental 
excogitation.  According  to  his  own  description  of  a  like 
faculty,  "it  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  you  had  asked 
for  anything  that  was  not  to  be  found  in  that  immense  store- 
house. The  article  you  required  was  not  only  there,  it  was 
ready.  It  was  in  its  own  compartment.  In  a  moment  it 
was  brought  down,  unpacked,  and  explained."  *  He  has  a 
literary  illustration  for  everything  ;  and  his  fancy  enables 
him  to  make  a  skilful  use  of  his  wealth.  He  always  select 
the  exact  likeness  of  the  idea  which  he  wishes  to  explain.^ 
And  though  it  be  less  obvious,  yet  his  writing  would  have 
been  deficient  in  one  of  its  most  essential  characteristics  if  it 
had  not  been  for  what  we  have  called  his  Scotch  intellect, 
which  is  a  curious  matter  to  explain.  It  may  be  thought 
that  Adam  Smith  had  little  in  common  with  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  Sir  Walter  was  always  making  fun  of  him  ;  telling 
odd  tales  of  his  abstraction  and  singularity  ;  not  obscurely 
hinting,  that  a  man  who  could  hardly  put  on  his  own  coat, 
and  certainly  could  not  buy  his  own  dinner,  was  scarcely  fit 
to  decide  on  the  proper  course  of  industry  and  the  mercantile 
dealings  of  nations.  Yet,  when  Sir  Walter's  own  works 
come  to  be  closely  examined,  they  will  be  found  to  contain  a 
good  deal  of  political  economy  of  a  certain  sort,  —  and  not  a 
very  bad  sort.  Any  one  who  will  study  his  description  of  the 
Highland  clans  in  Waverley;  his  observations  on  the  indus- 
trial side  (if  so  it  is  to  be  called)  of  the  Border-life;  his  plans 
for  dealing  with  the  poor  of  his  own  time,  —  will  be  struck 
not  only  with  a  plain  sagacity,  which  we  could  equal  in 
England,  but  with  the  digested  accuracy  and  theoretical 
completeness  which  they  show.  You  might  cut  paragraphs, 
even  from  his  lighter  writings,  which  would  be  thought 
acute  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  There  appears  to  be  in 

1  Essay  on  "  Sir  James  Mackintosh  ". 


Literary  Studies. 


the  genius  of  the  Scotch  people — fostered,  no  doubt,  by  the 
abstract  metaphysical  education  of  their  Universities,  but, 
also,  by  way  of  natural  taste,  supporting  that  education, 
and  rendering  it  possible  and  popular — a  power  of  reducing 
human  actions  to  formulae  or  principles.  An  instance  is  now 
in  a  high  place.  People  who  are  not  lawyers, — rural  people, 
who  have  sense  of  their  own,  but  have  no  access  to  the 
general  repute  and  opinion  which  expresses  the  collective 
sense  of  the  great  world, — never  can  be  brought  to  believe 
that  Lord  Campbell  is  a  great  man.  They  read  his  speeches 
in  the  House  of  Lords — his  occasional  flights  of  eloquence 
on  the  Bench  —  his  attempts  at  pathos — his  stupendous 
gaucheries — and  they  cannot  be  persuaded  that  a  person 
guilty  of  such  things  can  have  really  first-rate  talent.  If  you 
ask  them  how  he  came  to  be  Chief  Justice  of  England,  they 
mutter  something  angry,  and  say,  "  Well,  Scotchmen  do  get 
on  somehow".  This  is  really  the  true  explanation.  In 
spite  of  a  hundred  defects,  Lord  Campbell  has  the  Scotch 
^faculties  in  perfection.  He  reduces  legal  matters  to  a 
sound  broad  principle  better  than  any  man  who  is  now  a 
judge.  He  has  a  steady,  comprehensive,  abstract,  distinct 
consistency,  which  elaborates  a  formula  and  adheres  to  a 
formula  ;  and  it  is  this  which  has  raised  him  from  a  plain — 
a  very  plain — Scotch  lawyer  to  be  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
England.  Macaulay  has  this  too.  Among  his  more  brilliant 
qualities,  it  has  escaped  the  attention  of  critics;  the  more  so, 
because  his  powers  of  exposition  and  expression  make  it  im- 
possible to  conceive  for  a  moment  that  the  amusing  matter 
we  are  reading  is  really  Scotch  economy. 

"During  the  interval,"  he  tells  us,  "between  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution,  the  riches  of  the  nation  had  been  rapidly  increasing. 
Thousands  of  busy  men  found  every  Christmas  that,  after  the  expenses 
of  the  year's  housekeeping  had  been  defrayed  out  of  the  year's  income,  a 
surplus  remained  ;  and  how  that  surplus  was  to  be  employed  was  a 
question  of  some  difficulty.  In  our  time,  to  invest  such  a  surplus,  at 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  31 

something  more  than  three  per  cent.,  on  the  best  security  that  has  ever 
been  known  in  the  world,  is  the  work  of  a  few  minutes.  But  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  a  retired  merchant,  who  had 
saved  some  thousands,  and  who  wished  to  place  them  safely  and  profit- 
ably, was  often  greatly  embarrassed.  Three  generations  earlier,  a  man 
who  had  accumulated  wealth  in  a  profession  generally  purchased  real 
property,  or  lent  his  savings  on  mortgage.  But  the  number  of  acres  in 
the  kingdom  had  remained  the  same;  and  the  value  of  those  acres,  though 
it  had  greatly  increased,  had  by  no  means  increased  so  fast  as  the  quantity 
of  capital  which  was  seeking  for  employment.  Many,  too,  wished  to  put 
their  money  where  they  could  find  it  at  an  hour's  notice,  and  looked  about 
for  some  species  of  property  which  could  be  more  readily  transferred  than 
a  house  or  a  field.  A  capitalist  might  lend  on  bottomry  or  on  personal 
security ;  but,  if  he  did  so,  he  ran  a  great  risk  of  losing  interest  and 
principal.  There  were  a  few  joint-stock  companies,  among  which  the 
East  India  Company  held  the  foremost  place ;  but  the  demand  for  the 
stock  of  such  companies  was  far  greater  than  the  supply.  Indeed,  the  cry 
for  a  new  East  India  Company  was  chiefly  raised  by  persons  who  had 
found  difficulty  in  placing  their  savings  at  interest  on  good  security.  So 
great  was  that  difficulty,  that  the  practice  of  hoarding  was  common.  We 
are  told  that  the  father  of  Pope,  the  poet,  who  retired  from  business  in 
the  City  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  carried  to  a  retreat  in  the 
country  a  strong  box  containing  nearly  twenty  thousand  pounds,  and 
took  out  from  time  to  time  what  was  required  for  household  expenses ; 
and  it  is  highly  probable  that  this  was  not  a  solitary  case.  At  present, 
the  quantity  of  coin  which  is  hoarded  by  private  persons  is  so  small,  that 
it  would,  if  brought  forth,  make  no  perceptible  addition  to  the  circulation. 
But,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  all  the  greatest 
writers  on  currency  were  of  opinion  that  a  very  considerable  mass,  of  gold 
and  silver  was  hidden  in  secret  drawers  and  behind  wainscots. 

"  The  natural  effect  of  this  state  of  things  was,  that  a  crowd  of  pro- 
jectors, ingenious  and  absurd,  honest  and  knavish,  employed  themselves 
in  devising  new  schemes  for  the  employment  of  redundant  capital.  It 
was  about  the  year  1688  that  the  word  stockjobber  was  first  heard  in 
London.  In  the  short  space  of  four  years  a  crowd  of  companies,  every 
one  of  which  confidently  held  out  to  subscribers  the  hope  of  immense 
gains,  sprang  into  existence :  the  Insurance  Company,  the  Paper  Com- 
pany, the  Lutestring  Company,  the  Pearl-Fishery  Company,  the  Glass- 
Bottle  Company,  the  Alum  Company,  the  Blythe  Coal  Company,  the 
Swordblade  Company.  There  was  a  Tapestry  Company,  which  would 


32  Literary  Studies. 


soon  furnish  pretty  hangings  for  all  the  parlours  of  the  middle  class  and 
for  all  the  bedchambers  of  the  higher.  There  was  a  Copper  Company, 
which  proposed  to  explore  the  mines  of  England,  and  held  out  a  hope  that 
they  would  prove  not  less  valuable  than  those  of  Potosi.  There  was  a 
Diving  Company,  which  undertook  to  bring  up  precious  effects  from 
shipwrecked  vessels,  and  which  announced  that  it  had  laid  in  a  stock  of 
wonderful  machines,  resembling  complete  suits  of  armour.  In  front  of 
the  helmet  was  a  huge  glass  eye,  like  that  of  a  Cyclop  ;  and  out  of  the 
crest  went  a  pipe,  through  which  the  air  was  to  be  admitted.  The  whole 
process  was  exhibited  on  the  Thames.  Fine  gentlemen  and  fine  ladies 
were  invited  to  the  show,  were  hospitably  regaled,  and  were  delighted  by 
seeing  the  divers  in  their  panoply  descend  into  the  river,  and  return  laden 
with  old  iron  and  ship's  tackle.  There  was  a  Greenland  Fishing  Com- 
pany, which  could  not  fail  to  drive  the  Dutch  whalers  and  herring-busses 
out  of  the  Northern  Ocean.  There  was  a  Tanning  Company,  which 
promised  to  furnish  leather  superior  to  the  best  that  was  brought  from 
Turkey  or  Russia.  There  was  a  society  which  undertook  the  office  of 
giving  gentlemen  a  liberal  education  on  low  terms,  and  which  assumed 
the  sounding  name  of  the  Royal  Academies  Company.  In  a  pompous 
advertisement  it  was  announced  that  the  directors  of  the  Royal 
Academies  Company  had  engaged  the  best  masters  in  every  branch  of 
knowledge,  and  were  about  to  issue  twenty  thousand  tickets  at  twenty 
shillings  each.  There  was  to  be  a  lottery :  two  thousand  prizes  were  to 
be  drawn  ;  and  the  fortunate  holders  of  the  prizes  were  to  be  taught,  at 
the  charge  of  the  Company,  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  French,  Spanish, 
conic  sections,  trigonometry,  heraldry,  japanning,  fortification,  book- 
keeping, and  the  art  of  playing  the  theorbo.  Some  of  these  companies 
took  large  mansions,  and  printed  their  advertisements  in  gilded  letters. 
Others,  less  ostentatious,  were  content  with  ink,  and  met  at  coffee-houses 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Royal  Exchange.  Jonathan's  and  Garraway's 
were  in  a  constant  ferment  with  brokers,  buyers,  sellers,  meetings  of 
directors,  meetings  of  proprietors.  Time-bargains  soon  came  into  fashion. 
Extensive  combinations  were  formed,  and  monstrous  fables  were  circu- 
lated, for  the  purpose  of  raising  or  depressing  the  price  of  shares.  Our 
country  witnessed  for  the  first  time  those  phenomena  with  which  a  long 
experience  has  made  us  familiar.  A  mania,  of  which  the  symptoms  were 
essentially  the  same  with  those  of  the  mania  of  1720,  of  the  mania  of  1825, 
of  the  mania  of  1845,  seized  the  public  mind.  An  impatience  to  be  rich, 
a  contempt  for  those  slow  but  sure  gains  which  are  the  proper  reward  of 
industry,  patience,  and  thrift,  spread  through  society.  The  spirit  of  the 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  33 

cogging  dicers  at  Whitefriars  took  possession  of  the  grave  senators  of  the 
City,  wardens  of  trades,  deputies,  aldermen.  It  was  much  easier  and 
much  more  lucrative  to  put  forth  a  lying  prospectus  announcing  a  new 
stock,  to  persuade  ignorant  people  that  the  dividends  could  not  fall  short 
of  twenty  per  cent.,  and  to  part  with  five  thousand  pounds  of  this 
imaginary  wealth  for  ten  thousand  solid  guineas,  than  to  load  a  ship  with 
a  well-chosen  cargo  for  Virginia  or  the  Levant.  Every  day  some  new 
bubble  was  puffed  into  existence,  rose  buoyant,  shone  bright,  burst,  and 
was  forgotten."  1 

You  will  not  find  the  cause  of  panics  so  accurately  explained 
in  the  dryest  of  political  economists  —  in  the  Scotch 
M'Culloch. 

These  peculiarities  of  character  and  mind  may  be  very 
conspicuously  traced  through  the  History  of  England,  and 
in  the  Essays.  Their  first  and  most  striking  quality  is  the 
intellectual  entertainment  which  they  afford.  This,  as 
practical  readers  know,  is  a  kind  of  sensation  which  is  not 
very  common,  and  which  is  very  productive  of  great  and 
healthy  enjoyment.  It  is  quite  distinct  from  the  amusement 
which  is  derived  from  common  light  works.  The  latter  is 
very  great ;  but  it  is  passive.  The  mind  of  the  reader  is  not 
awakened  to  any  independent  action  :  you  see  the  farce,  but 
you  see  it  without  effort ;  not  simply  without  painful  effort, 
but  without  any  perceptible  mental  activity  whatever. 
Again,  entertainment  of  intellect  is  contrasted  with  the  high 
enjoyment  of  consciously  following  pure  and  difficult  reason- 
ing ;  such  a  sensation  is  a  sort  of  sublimated  pain.  The 
highest  and  most  intense  action  of  the  intellectual  powers  is 
like  the  most  intense  action  of  the  bodily  on  a  high  moun- 
tain. We  climb  and  climb :  we  have  a  thrill  of  pleasure,  but 
we  have  also  a  sense  of  effort  and  anguish.  Nor  is  the 
sensation  to  be  confounded  with  that  which  we  experience 
from  the  best  and  purest  works  of  art.  The  pleasure  of  high 

1  History  of  England,  chap.  xix. 
VOL.  II.  3 


34  Literary  Studies. 


tragedy  is  also  painful :  the  whole  soul  is  stretched  ;  the 
spirit  pants  ;  the  passions  scarcely  breathe  :  it  is  a  rapt  and 
eager  moment,  too  intense  for  continuance — so  overpower- 
ing, that  we  scarcely  know  whether  it  be  joy  or  pain.  The 
,ensation  of  intellectual  entertainment  is  altogether  dis- 
inguished  from  these  by  not  being  accompanied  by  any 
?ain,  and  yet  being  consequent  on,  or  being  contemporaneous 
,vith,  a  high  and  constant  exercise  of  mind.  While  we  read 
works  which  so  delight  us,  we  are  conscious  that  we  are 
delighted,  and  are  conscious  that  we  are  not  idle.  The 
opposite  pleasures  of  indolence  and  exertion  seem  for  a 
moment  combined.  A  sort  of  elasticity  pervades  us ; 
thoughts  come  easily  and  quickly;  we  seem  capable  of  many 
ideas  ;  we  follow  cleverness  till  we  fancy  that  we  are  clever. 
This  feeling  is  only  given  by  writers  who  stimulate  the  mind 
just  to  the  degree  which  is  pleasant,  and  who  do  not 
stimulate  it  more  ;  who  exact  a  moderate  exercise  of  mind, 
and  who  seduce  us  to  it  insensibly.  This  can  only  be,  of 
course,  by  a  charm  of  style  ;  by  the  inexplicable  je  ne  sais 
quoi  which  attracts  our  attention  ;  by  constantly  raising  and 
constantly  satisfying  our  curiosity.  And  there  seems  to  be 
a  further  condition.  A  writer  who  wishes  to  produce  this 
v  Constant  effect  must  not  appeal  to  any  single,  separate 
'acuity  of  mind,  but  to  the  whole  mind  at  once.  The  fancy 
tires,  if  you  appeal  only  to  the  fancy  ;  the  understanding  is 
aware  of  its  dulness,  if  you  appeal  only  to  the  understanding ; 
the  curiosity  is  soon  satiated,  unless  you  pique  it  with 
variety.  This  is  the  very  opportunity  for  Macaulay.  He 
has  fancy,  sense,  abundance  ;  he  appeals  to  both  fancy  and 
understanding.  There  is  no  sense  of  effort.  His  books  read 
like  an  elastic  dream.  There  is  a  continual  sense  of  instruc- 
tion ;  for  who  had  an  idea  of  the  transactions  before  ?  The 
emotions,  too,  which  he  appeals  to  are  the  easy  admiration, 
the  cool  disapprobation,  the  gentle  worldly  curiosity,  which 


! 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  35 

quietly  excite  us,  never  fatigue  us, — which  we  could  bear  for 
ever.  To  read  Macaulay  for  a  day,  would  be  to  pass  a  day 
of  easy  thought,  of  pleasant  placid  emotion. 

Nor  is  this  a  small  matter.  In  a  state  of  high  civilisa- 
tion it  is  no  simple  matter  to  give  multitudes  a  large  and 
healthy  enjoyment.  The  old  bodily  enjoyments  are  dying 
out ;  there  is  no  room  for  them  any  more  ;  the  complex 
apparatus  of  civilisation  cumbers  the  ground.  We  are 
thrown  back  upon  the  mind,  and  the  mind  is  a  barren  thing. 
It  can  spin  little  from  itself:  few  that  describe  what  they  see 
are  in  the  way  to  discern  much.  Exaggerated  emotions, 
violent  incidents,  monstrous  characters,  crowd  our  canvas  ; 
they  are  the  resource  of  a  weakness  which  would  obtain  the 
fame  of  strength.  Reading  is  about  to  become  a  series  of 
collisions  against  aggravated  breakers,  of  beatings  with 
imaginary  surf.  In  such  times  a  book  of  sensible  attraction 
is  a  public  benefit ;  it  diffuses  a  sensation  of  vigour  through 
the  multitude.  Perhaps  there  is  a  danger  that  the  extreme 
popularity  of  the  manner  may  make  many  persons  fancy  they 
understand  the  matter  more  perfectly  than  they  do  :  some 
readers  may  become  conceited  ;  several  boys  believe  thzC 
they  too  are  Macaulays.  Yet,  duly  allowing  for  tnis 
defect,  it  is  a  great  good  that  so  many  people  shoulc 
learn  so  much  on  such  topics  so  agreeably ;  that  they 
should  feel  that  they  can  understand  them ;  that  their 
minds  should  be  stimulated  by  a  consciousness  of  health 
and  power. 

The  same  peculiarities  influence  the  style  of  the  narrative. 
The  art  of  narration  is  the  art  of  writing  in  hooks-and-eyes. 
The  principle  consists  in  making  the  appropriate  thought 
follow  the  appropriate  thought,  the  proper  fact  the  proper 
fact ;  in  first  preparing  the  mind  for  what  is  to  come,  and 
then  letting  it  come.  This  can  only  be  achieved  by  keeping 
continually  and  insensibly  before  the  mind  of  the  reader  some 


36  Literary  Studies. 


one  object,  character,  or  image,  whose  variations  are  the 
events  of  the  story,  whose  unity  is  the  unity  of  it.  Scott,  for 
example,  keeps  before  you  the  mind  of  some  one  person, — 
that  of  Morton  in  Old  Mortality,  of  Rebecca  in  Ivanhoe, 
of  Lovel  in  The  Antiquary, — whose  fortunes  and  mental 
changes  are  the  central  incidents,  whose  personality  is  the 
string  of  unity.  It  is  the  defect  of  the  great  Scotch  novels 
that  their  central  figure  is  frequently  not  their  most  in- 
teresting topic, — that  their  interest  is  often  rather  in  the 
accessories  than  in  the  essential  principle,  rather  in  that 
which  surrounds  the  centre  of  narration  than  in  the  centre 
itself.  Scott  tries  to  meet  this  objection  by  varying  the  mind 
which  he  selects  for  his  unit ;  in  one  of  his  chapters  it  is  one 
character,  in  the  next  a  different ;  he  shifts  the  scene  from 
the  hero  to  the  heroine,  from  the  "  Protector  of  the  settle- 
ment "  of  the  story  to  the  evil  being  who  mars  it  perpetually/: 
but  when  narrowly  examined,  the  principle  of  his  narration 
will  be  found  nearly  always  the  same, — the  changes  in  the 
position — external  or  mental — of  some  one  human  being. 
The  most  curiously  opposite  sort  of  narration  is  that  of 
Hume.  He  seems  to  carry  a  view,  as  the  moderns  call  it, 
through  everything.  He  forms  to  himself  a  metaphysical — 
that  perhaps  is  a  harsh  word — an  intellectual  conception  of 
the  time  and  character  before  him  ;  and  the  gradual  working 
out  or  development  of  that  view  is  the  principle  of  his  nar- 
ration. He  tells  the  story  of  the  conception.  You  rise  from 
his  pages  without  much  remembrance  of  or  regard  for  the 
mere  people,  but  with  a  clear  notion  of  an  elaborated  view, 
skilfully  abstracted  and  perpetually  impressed  upon  you.  A 
critic  of  detail  should  scarcely  require  a  better  task  than  to 
show  how  insensibly  and  artfully  the  subtle  historian  infuses 
his  doctrine  among  the  facts,  indicates  somehow — you  can 
scarcely  say  how — their  relation  to  it ;  strings  them,  as  it 
were,  upon  it,  concealing  it  in  seeming  beneath  them,  while 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  37 

in  fact  it  altogether  determines  their  form,  their  grouping, 
and  their  consistency.  The  style  of  Macaulay  is  very 
different  from  either  of  these.  It  is  a  diorama  of  political 
pictures.  You  seem  to  begin  with  a  brilliant  picture, — its 
colours  are  distinct,  its  lines  are  firm ;  on  a  sudden  it< 
changes,  at  first  gradually,  you  can  scarcely  tell  how  or  in 
what,  but  truly  and  unmistakably, — a  slightly  different/ 
picture  is  before  you  ;  then  the  second  vision  seems  to 
change, — it  too  is  another  and  yet  the  same  ;  then  the  third! 
shines  forth  and  fades  ;  and  so  without  end.  The  unity  of 
this  delineation  is  the  identity — the  apparent  identity — of 
the  picture  ;  in  no  two  moments  does  it  seem  quite  different, 
in  no  two  is  it  identically  the  same.  It  grows  and  alters  as 
our  bodies  would  appear  to  alter  and  grow,  if  you  could  fancy 
any  one  watching  them,  and  being  conscious  of  their  daily 
little  changes.  The  events  are  picturesque  variations  ;  the 
unity  is  a  unity  of  political  painting,  of  represented  external 
form.  It  is  evident  how  suitable  this  is  to  a  writer  whos^ 
understanding  is  solid,  whose  sense  is  political,  whose  fancv 
is  fine  and  delineative. 

To  this  merit  of  Macaulay  is  to  be  added  another.  No 
one  describes  so  well  what  we  may  call  the  spectacle  of  a 
character.  The  art  of  delineating  character  by  protracted 
description  is  one  which  grows  in  spite  of  the  critics.  In 
vain  is  it  alleged  that  the  character  should  be  shown  drama- 
tically ;  that  it  should  be  illustrated  by  events  ;  that  it  should 
be  exhibited  in  its  actions.  The  truth  is,  that  these  homilies 
are  excellent,  but  incomplete  ;  true,  but  out  of  season. 
There  is  a  utility  in  verbal  portrait,  as  Lord  Stanhope  says 
there  is  in  painted.  Goethe  used  to  observe,  that  in  society 
— in  a  tete-a-tete,  rather — you  often  thought  of  your  com- 
panion as  if  he  was  his  portrait :  you  were  silent ;  you  did 
not  care  what  he  said  ;  but  you  considered  him  as  a  picture, 
as  a  whole,  especially  as  regards  yourself  and  your  relations 


Literary  Studies. 


towards  him. l  You  require  something  of  the  same  kind  in 
literature  ;  some  description  of  a  man  is  clearly  necessary  as 
an  introduction  to  the  story  of  his  life  and  actions.  But 
more  than  this  is  wanted  ;  you  require  to  have  the  object 
placed  before  you  as  a  whole,  to  have  the  characteristic  traits 
mentioned,  the  delicate  qualities  drawn  out,  the  firm  features 
gently  depicted.  As  the  practice  which  Goethe  hints  at  is,  of 
all  others,  the  most  favourable  to  a  just  and  calm  judgment 
of  character,  so  the  literary  substitute  is  essential  as  a 
steadying  element,  as  a  summary,  to  bring  together  and 
give  a  unity  to  our  views.  We  must  see  the  man's  face. 
Without  it,  we  seem  to  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  the 
person,  but  not  to  have  known  him ;  to  be  aware  that  he  had 
dbne  a  good  deal,  but  to  have  no  settled,  ineradicable  notion 
what  manner  of  man  he  was.  This  is  the  reason  why  critics 
like  Macaulay,  who  sneer  at  the  practice  when  estimating  the 
work  of  others,  yet  make  use  of  it  at  great  length,  and,  in  his 
case,  with  great  skill,  when  they  come  to  be  historians  them- 
selves. The  kind  of  characters  whom  Macaulay  can  describe 
is  limited — at  least  we  think  so — by.  the  bounds  which  we 
indicated  just  now.  There  are  some  men  whom  he  is  too  im- 
passive to  comprehend  ;  but  he  can  always  tell  us  of  such  as 
he  does  comprehend,  what  they  looked  like,  and  what  they 
were. 

A  great  deal  of  this  vividness  Macaulay  of  course  owes 
to  his  style.  Of  its  effectiveness  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  its 
agreeableness  no  one  who  has  just  been  reading  it  is  likely 
to  deny.  Yet  it  has  a  defect.  It  is  not,  as  Bishop  Butler 
would  have  expressed  it,  such  a  style  as  "is  suitable  to  such 

1a  being  as  man,  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one  ".  It  is 
too  omniscient.  Everything  is  too  plain.  All  is  clear ; 
nothing  is  doubtful.  Instead  of  probability  being,  as  the 

1  Elective  Affinities,  part  ii.,  chap.  ii. 


Thomas  Babington  Macautay.  39 

great  thinker  expressed  it,  "  the  very  guide  of  life,"1  it  ha£ 
become  a  rare  exception — an  uncommon  phenomenon'! 
You  rarely  come  across  anything  which  is  not  decided  * 
and  when  you  do  come  across  it,  you  seem  to  wonder 
that  the  positiveness,  which  has  accomplished  so  much, 
should  have  been  unwilling  to  decide  everything.  This  is 
hardly  the  style  for  history.  The  data  of  historical  narratives, 
especially  of  modern  histories,  are  a  heap  of  confusion.  No 
one  can  tell  where  they  lie,  or  where  they  do  not  lie  ;  what 
is  in  them,  or  what  is  not  in  them.  Literature  is  called  the 
"  fragment  of  fragments  "  ;  little  has  been  written,  and  but 
little  of  that  little  has  been  preserved.  So  history  is  a  vestige 
of  vestiges  ;  few  facts  leave  any  trace  of  themselves,  any 
witness  of  their  occurrence ;  of  fewer  still  is  that  witness 
preserved  ;  a  slight  track  is  all  anything  leaves,  and  the  con- 
fusion of  life,  the  tumult  of  change,  sweeps  even  that  away 
in  a  moment.  It  is  not  possible  that  these  data  can  be  very 
fertile  in  certainties.  Few  people  would  make  anything  of 
them  :  a  memoir  here,  a  MS.  there — two  letters  in  a  magazine 
— an  assertion  by  a  person  whose  veracity  is  denied, — these 
are  the  sort  of  evidence  out  of  which  a  flowing  narrative  is 
to  be  educed  ;  and  of  course  it  ought  not  to  be  too  flowing. 
"  If  you  please,  sir,  tell  me  what  you  do  not  know,"  was  the 
inquiry  of  a  humble  pupil  addressed  to  a  great  man  of  science. 
It  would  have  been  a  relief  to  the  readers  of  Macaulay  if  he 
had  shown  a  little  the  outside  of  uncertainties,  which  there 
must  be — the  gradations  of  doubt,  which  there  ought  to  be — 
the  singular  accumulation  of  difficulties,  which  must  beset 
the  extraction  of  a  very  easy  narrative  from  very  confused 
materials. 

This  defect  in  style  is,  indeed,  indicative  of  a  defect  in 
understanding.  Macaulay's  mind  is  eminently  gifted,  but 
there  is  a  want  of  graduation  in  it.  He  has  a  fine  eye  for 

1  Introduction  to  Butler's  Analogy. 


40  Literary  Studies. 


probabilities,  a  clear  perception  of  evidence,  a  shrewd  guess 
at  missing  links  of  fact ;  but  each  probability  seems  to  him 
a  certainty,  each  piece  of  evidence  conclusive,  each  analogy 
exact.  The  heavy  Scotch  intellect  is  a  little  prone  to  this  : 
one  figures  it  as  a  heap  of  formulae,  and  if  fact  b  is  reducible 
to  formula  B,  that  is  all  which  it  regards  ;  the  mathematical 
mill  grinds  with  equal  energy  at  flour  perfect  and  imperfect 
— at  matter  which  is  quite  certain  and  at  matter  which  is 
only  a  little  probable.  But  the  great  cause  of  this  error  is, 
[an  abstinence  from  practical  action.  Life  is  a  school  of 
(probability.  In  the  writings  of  every  man  of  patient  practi- 
cality, in  the  midst  of  whatever  other  defects,  you  will  find  a 
careful  appreciation  of  the  degrees  of  likelihood  ;  a  steady 
balancing  of  them  one  against  another  ;  a  disinclination  to 
Vmake  things  too  clear,  to  overlook  the  debit  side  of  the 
account  in  mere  contemplation  of  the  enormousness  of  the 
credit.  The  reason  is  obvious  :  action  is  a  business  of  risk  ; 
the  real  question  is  the  magnitude  of  that  risk.  Failure  is 
ever  impending  ;  success  is  ever  uncertain  ;  there  is  always, 
in  the  very  best  of  affairs,  a  slight  probability  of  the  former, 
a  contingent  possibility  of  the  non-occurrence  of  the  latter. 
For  practical  men,  the  problem  ever  is  to  test  the  amount  of 
these  inevitable  probabilities  ;  to  make  sure  that  no  one 
increases  too  far ;  that  by  a  well-varied  choice  the  number  of 
risks  may  in  itself  be  a  protection — be  an  insurance  to  you, 
as  it  were,  against  the  capricious  result  of  any  one.  A  man 
like  Macaulay,  who  stands  aloof  from  life,  is  not  so 
instructed  ;  he'  sits  secure  :  nothing  happens  in  his  study : 
he  does  not  care  to  test  probabilities  ;  he  loses  the  detective 
sensation. 

Macaulay's  so-called  inaccuracy  is  likewise  a  phase  of 
this  defect.  Considering  the  enormous  advantages  which  a 
picturesque  style  gives  to  ill-disposed  critics  ;  the  number  of 
points  of  investigation  which  it  suggests  ;  the  number  of 


Thomas  ttabington  Macautay.  4* 

assertions  it  makes,  sentence  by  sentence ;  the  number  of  ill- 
disposed  critics  that  there  are  in  the  world ;  remembering 
Macaulay's  position — set  on  a  hill  to  be  spied  at  by  them — 
he  can  scarcely  be  thought  an  inaccurate  historian.  Con- 
sidering all  things,  they  have  found  few  certain  blunders, 
hardly  any  direct  mistakes.  Every  sentence  of  his  style 
requires  minute  knowledge  ;  the  vivid  picture  has  a  hundred 
details  ;  each  of  those  details  must  have  an  evidence,  an 
authority,  a  proof.  A  historian  like  Hume  passes  easily 
over  a  period  ;  his  chart  is  large  ;  if  he  gets  the  conspicuous 
headlands,  the  large  harbours  duly  marked,  he  does  not  care. 
Macaulay  puts  in  the  depth  of  each  wave,  every  remarkable 
rock,  every  tree  on  the  shore.  Nothing  gives  a  critic  so  great 
an  advantage.  It  is  difficult  to  do  this  for  a  volume  ;  simple 
for  a  page.  It  is  easy  to  select  a  particular  event,  and  learn 
all  which  any  one  can  know  about  it ;  examine  Macaulay's 
descriptions,  say  he  is  wrong,  that  X  is  not  buried  where  he 
asserts,  that  a  little  boy  was  one  year  older  than  he  states. 
But  how  would  the  critic  manage,  if  he  had  to  work  out  all 
this  for  a  million  facts,  for  a  whole  period  ?  Few  men,  we 
suspect,  would  be  able  to  make  so  few  errors  of  simple  and 
provable  fact.  On  the  other  hand,  few  men  would  arouse  a 
sleepy  critic  by  such  startling  assertion.  If  Macaulay  finds  a 
new  theory,  he  states  it  as  a  fact.  Very  likely  it  really  is  the 
most  probable  theory  ;  at  any  rate,  we  know  of  no  case  in 
which  his  theory  is  not  one  among  the  most  plausible.  If  it 
had  only  been  so  stated,  it  would  have  been  well  received. 
His  view  of  Marlborough's  character,  for  instance,  is  a 
specious  one  ;  it  has  a  good  deal  of  evidence,  a  large  amount 
of  real  probability,  but  it  has  scarcely  more.  Marlborough 
may  have  been  as  bad  as  is  said,  but  we  can  hardly  be  sure 
of  it  at  this  time. 

Macaulay's  "  party-spirit  "  is  another  consequence  of  his 
positiveness.     When  he  inclines  to  a  side,  he  inclines  to  it 


42  Literary  Studies,, 


too  much.  His  opinions  are  a  shade  too  strong ;  his  pre- 
dilections some  degrees  at  least  too  warm.  William  is  too 
perfect,  James  too  imperfect.  The  Whigs  are  a  trifle  like 
angels ;  the  Tories  like,  let  us  say,  "  our  inferiors  ".  Yet 
this  is  evidently  an  honest  party-spirit.  It  does  not  lurk  in 
the  corners  of  sentences,  it  is  not  insinuated  without  being 
alleged  ;  it  does  not,  like  the  unfairness  of  Hume,  secrete 
itself  so  subtly  in  the  turns  of  the  words,  that  when  you  look 
to  prove  it,  it  is  gone.  On  the  contrary,  it  rushes  into  broad 
day.  William  is  loaded  with  panegyric ;  James  is  always 
V  spoken  evil  of.  Hume's  is  the  artful  pleading  of  a  hired 
ykdvocate  ;  Macaulay's  the  bold  eulogy  of  a  sincere  friend. 
V^s  far  as  effect  goes,  this  is  an  error.  The  very  earnestness 
of  the  affection  leads  to  a  reaction  ;  we  are  tired  of  having 
William  called  the  "just";  we  cannot  believe  so  many 
pages  ;  "  all  that  "  can  scarcely  be  correct.  As  we  said,  if 
the  historian's  preference  for  persons  and  parties  had  been 
duly  tempered  and  mitigated,  if  the  probably  good  were  only 
said  to  be  probably  good,  if  the  rather  bad  were  only  alleged 
to  be  rather  bad,  the  reader  would  have  been  convinced,  and 
the  historian  would  have  escaped  the  savage  censure  of 
envious  critics. 

V.  The  one  thing  which  detracts  from  the  pleasure  of 
reading  these  volumes,  is  the  doubt  whether  they  should 
have  been  written.  Should  not  these  great  powers  be  re- 
served for  great  periods  ?  Is  this  abounding,  picturesque 
style  suited  for  continuous  history  ?  Are  small  men  to  be 
so  largely  described  ?  Should  not  admirable  delineation  be 
kept  for  admirable  people  ?  We  think  so.  You  do  not  want 
Raphael  to  paint  sign-posts,  or  Palladio  to  build  dirt-pies. 
Much  of  history  is  necessarily  of  little  value, — the  superficies 
of  circumstance,  the  scum  of  events.  It  is  very  well  to  have 
it  described,  indeed  you  must  have  it  described  ;  the  chain 
must  be  kept  complete  ;  the  narrative  of  a  country's  fortunes 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay.  43 

will  not  allow  of  breaks  or  gaps.  Yet  all  things  need  not  be 
done  equally  well.  The  life  of  a  great  painter  is  short. 
Even  the  industry  of  Macaulay  will  not  complete  this 
history.  It  is  a  pity  to  spend  such  powers  on  such  events. 
It  would  have  been  better  to  have  some  new  volumes  of 
essays  solely  on  great  men  and  great  things.  The  diffuse- 
ness  of  the  style  would  have  been  then  in  place  ;  we  coulo 
have  borne  to  hear  the  smallest  minutiae  of  •  magnificenj 
epochs.  If  an  inferior  hand  had  executed  the  connecting 
links,  our  notions  would  have  acquired  an  insensible  pei 
spective  ;  the  works  of  the  great  artist,  the  best  therm 
would  have  stood  out  from  the  canvas.  They  are  now  c< 
fused  by  the  equal  brilliancy  of  the  adjacent  inferiorities. 

Much  more  might  be  said  on  this  narrative.  As  it  will 
be  read  for  very  many  years,  it  will  employ  the  critics  for 
very  many  years.  It  would  be  unkind  to  make  all  the  best 
observations.  Something,  as  Mr.  Disraeli  said  in  a  budget- 
speech,  something  should  be  left  for  "  future  statements  of 
this  nature".  There  will  be  an  opportunity.  Whatever  those 
who  come  after  may  say  against  this  book,  it  will  be,  and 
remain,  the  "  Pictorial  History  of  England". 


44 


BERANGER.1 

(1857-) 

THE  invention  of  books  has  at  least  one  great  advantage. 
It  has  half-abolished  one  of  the  worst  consequences  of  the 
diversity  of  languages.  Literature  enables  nations  to  under- 
stand one  another.  Oral  intercourse  hardly  does  this.  In 
English,  a  distinguished  foreigner  says  not  what  he  thinks, 
but  what  he  can.  There  is  a  certain  intimate  essence  of 
national  meaning  which  is  as  untranslatable  as  good  poetry. 
Dry  thoughts  are  cosmopolitan ;  but  the  delicate  associations 
of  language  which  express  character,  the  traits  of  speech 
which  mark  the  man,  differ  in  every  tongue,  so  that  there 
are  not  even  cumbrous  circumlocutions  that  are  equivalent 
in  another.  National  character  is  a  deep  thing — a  shy 
thing ;  you  cannot  exhibit  much  of  it  to  people  who  have  a 
difficulty  in  understanding  your  language ;  you  are  in  strange 
society,  and  you  feel  you  will  not  be  understood.  "  Let  an 
English  gentleman,"  writes  Mr.  Thackeray,  "who  has  dwelt 
two,  four,  or  ten  years  in  Paris,  say  at  the  end  of  any  given 
period  how  much  he  knows  of  French  society,  how  many 
French  houses  he  has  entered,  and  how  many  French  friends 
he  has  made.  Intimacy  there  is  none ;  we  see  but  the  out- 
sides  of  the  people.  Year  by  year  we  live  in  France,  and 

i  (Euvres  completes  de  C.-J.  de  Beranger.  Nouvelle  edition,  revue  par 
I'Auteur,  contenant  les  Dix  Chansons  nouvclles,  le  facsimile  d'une  Lettre 
de  Beranger ;  illustree  de  cinquante-deux  gravures  sur  acier,  d'apri's 
Charlet,  D'Aubigny,  Johannot  Grenier,  De  Lemud,  Pauquet,  Penguilly, 
Raffet,  Sandoz,  executees  par  les  artistes  les  plus  distingues,  et  d'un  bean 
portrait  d'apres  nature  par  Sandoz.  2  vols.,  8vo,  1855. 


Ber anger.  45 

grow  grey  and  see  no  more.  We  play  ecarte  with  Monsieur 
de  Trefle  every  night ;  but  what  do  we  know  of  the  heart  of 
the  man — of  the  inward  ways,  thoughts,  and  customs  of 
Trefle  ?  We  have  danced  with  Countess  Flicflac,  Tuesdays 
and  Thursdays,  ever  since  the  peace ;  and  how  far  are  we 
advanced  in  her  acquaintance  since  we  first  twirled  her  round 
a  room  ?  We  know  her  velvet  gown  and  her  diamonds;  we 
know  her  smiles  and  her  simpers  and  her  rouge ;  but  the 
real,  rougeless,  intitne  Flicflac  we  know  not."1  Even  if 
our  words  did  not  stutter,  as  they  do  stutter  on  our  tongue, 
she  would  not  tell  us  what  she  is.  Literature  has  half 
mended  this.  Books  are  exportable;  the  essence  of  national 
character  lies  flat  on  a  printed  page.  Men  of  genius,  with 
the  impulses  of  solitude,  produce  works  of  art,  whose  words 
can  be  read  and  re-read  and  partially  taken  in  by  foreigners 
to  whom  they  could  never  be  uttered,  the  very  thought  of 
whose  unsympathising  faces  would  freeze  them  on  the 
surface  of  the  mind.  Alexander  Smith  has  accused  poetical 
reviewers  of  beginning  as  far  as  possible  from  their  subject. 
It  may  seem  to  some,  though  it  is  not  so  really,  that  we  are 
exemplifying  this  saying  in  commencing  as  we  have  com- 
menced an  article  on  Beranger. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  poetry — which  one  may  call  poems 
of  this  world,  and  poems  not  of  this  world.  We  see  a  certain 
society  on  the  earth  held  together  by  certain  relations,  per- 
forming certain  acts,  exhibiting  certain  phenomena,  calling 
forth  certain  emotions.  The  millions  of  human  beings  who 
compose  it  have  their  various  thoughts,  feelings,  and  desires. 
They  hate,  act,  and  live.  The  social  bond  presses  them 
closely  together ;  and  from  their  proximity  new  sentiments 

1  We  have  been  obliged  to  abridge  the  above  extract,  and  in  so  doing 
have  left  out  the  humour  of  it.  (W.  Bagehot.)  [From  the  Paris  Sketch 
Book;  condensed  from  the  section  on  some  French  fashionable  novels.] 
(Forrest  Morgan.) 


46  Literary  Studies. 


arise  which  are  half  superficial  and  do  not  touch  the  inmost 
soul,  but  which  nevertheless  are  unspeakably  important  in 
the  actual  constitution  of  human  nature,  and  work  out  their 
effects  for  good  and  for  evil  on  the  characters  of  those  who 
are  subjected  to  their  influence.  These  sentiments  of  the 
world,  as  one  may  speak,  differ  from  the  more  primitive 
impulses  and  emotions  of  our  inner  nature  as  the  superficial 
phenomena  of  the  material  universe  from  what  we  fancy  is 
its  real  essence.  Passing  hues,  transient  changes  have  their 
course  before  our  eyes  ;  a  multiplex  diorama  is  for  ever  dis- 
played ;  underneath  it  all  we  fancy — such  is  the  inevitable 
constitution  of  our  thinking  faculty — a  primitive,  immovable 
essence,  which  is  modified  into  all  the  ever-changing  pheno- 
mena we  see,  which  is  the  grey  granite  whereon  they  lie,  the 
primary  substance  whose  debris  they  all  are.  Just  so  from 
the  original  and  primitive  emotions  of  man,  society  —  the 
evolving  capacity  of  combined  action  —  brings  out  desires 
which  seem  new,  in  a  sense  are  new,  which  have  no  existence 
out  of  the  society  itself,  are  coloured  by  its  customs  at  the 
moment,  change  with  the  fashions  of  the  age.  Such  a 
principle  is  what  we  may  call  social  gaiety :  the  love  of 
combined  amusement  which  all  men  feel  and  variously  ex- 
press, and  which  is  to  the  higher  faculties  of  the  soul  what 
a  gay  running  stream  is  to  the  everlasting  mountain  —  a 
light,  altering  element  which  beautifies  while  it  modifies. 
Poetry  does  not  shrink  from  expressing  such  feelings ;  on  the 
contrary,  their  renovating  cheerfulness  blends  appropriately 
with  her  inspiriting  delight.  Each  age  and  each  form  of 
the  stimulating  imagination  has  a  fashion  of  its  own.  Sir 
Walter  sings  in  his  modernised  chivalry  :— 

"  Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay, 
On  the  mountain  dawns  the  day; 
All  the  jolly  chase  is  here, 
With  hawk  and  horse  and  hunting-spear. 


Bevanger.  47 

Hounds  are  in  their  couples  yelling, 
Hawks  are  whistling,  horns  are  knelling. 
Merrily,  merrily,  mingle  they: 
Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay. 

"  Louder,  louder  chant  the  lay, 
Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay; 
Tell  them  youth  and  mirth  and  glee 
Run  a  course  as  well  as  we. 
Time,  stern  huntsman,  who  can  balk  ? 
Stanch  as  hound  and  fleet  as  hawk ; 
Think  of  this,  and  rise  with  day, 
Gentle  lords  and  ladies  gay."1 

The  poet  of  the  people,  "  vilain  et  tres  vilain,"  sings  with 
the  pauper  Bohemian  : — 

"  Voir,  c'est  avoir.     Allons  courir  1 

Vie  errante 

Est  chose  enivrante. 
Voir,  c'est  avoir.     Allons  courir  ! 
Car  tout  voir,  c'est  tout  conquerir. 

"  Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 

De  lois  vaines, 

De  lourdes  chaines ; 
Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 
Ni  berceau,  ni  toit,  ni  cercueil. 

"  Mais  croyez-en  notre  gaite^ 
Noble  ou  pretre, 
Valet  ou  maitre  ; 
Mais,  croyez-en  notre  gait6, 
Le  bonheur,  c'est  la  liberte. 

"  Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gait6, 

Noble  ou  pretre, 

Valet  ou  maitre  ; 
Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gait^, 
Le  bonheur,  c'est  la  liberteV'  a 

1  A  separate  lyric  first  published  in  the  Edinburgh  Annual  Register 
for  1808,  and  republished  in  the  collected  edition  of  Scott's  Poetical  Works 
in  1830,  under  the  title  of  "  Hunting  Song,"  vol.  viii.  p,  370. 

2  Les  Bohemiens. 


48  Literary  Studies. 


The  forms  of  those  poems  of  social  amusement  are,  in 
truth,  as  various  as  the  social  amusement  itself.  The 
variety  of  the  world,  singularly  various  as  it  everywhere 
is,  is  nowhere  so  various  as  in  that.  Men  have  more  ways 
of  amusing  themselves  than  of  doing  anything  else  they  do. 
But  the  essence — the  characteristic — of  these  poems  every- 
where is,  that  they  express  more  or  less  well  the  lighter 
desires  of  human  nature  ; — those  that  have  least  of  un- 
speakable depth,  partake  most  of  what  is  perishable  and 
earthly,  and  least  of  the  immortal  soul.  The  objects  of  these 
desires  are  social  accidents  ;  excellent,  perhaps,  essential, 
possibly — so  is  human  nature  made — in  one  form  and  variety 
or  another,  to  the  well-being  of  the  soul,  yet  in  themselves, 
transitory,  fleeting,  and  in  other  moods  contemptible.  The 
old  saying  was,  that  to  endure  solitude  a  man  must  either  be 
a  beast  or  a  god.  l  It  is  in  the  lighter  play  of  social  action, 
in  that  which  is  neither  animal  nor  divine,  which  in  its  half- 
way character  is  so  natural  to  man,  that  these  poems  of 
society,  which  we  have  called  poems  of  amusement,  have 
their  place. 

This  species  does  not,  however,  exhaust  the  whole  class. 
Society  gives  rise  to  another  sort  of  poems,  differing  from 
this  one  as  contemplation  differs  from  desire.  Society  may 
be  thought  of  as  an  object.  The  varied  scene  of  men, — their 
hopes,  fears,  anxieties,  maxims,  actions, — presents  a  sight 
more  interesting  to  man  than  any  other  which  has  ever 
existed,  or  which  can  exist ;  and  it  may  be  viewed  in  all 
moods  of  mind,  and  with  the  change  of  inward  emotion  as 
the  external  object  seems  to  change  :  not  that  it  really  does 
so,  but  that  some  sentiments  are  more  favourable  to  clear- 
sightedness than  others  are  ;  and  some  bring  before  us  one 
aspect  of  the  subject,  and  fix  our  attention  upon  it,  others  a 

1  Bacon  :  Essay  on  "  Friendship,"  quoting  from  Aristotle's  Politica. 
(Forrest  Morgan.) 


Beranger.  49 

different  one,  and  bind  our  minds  to  that  likewise.  Among 
the  most  remarkable  of  these  varied  views  is  the  world's  view 
of  itself.  The  world,  such  as  it  is,  has  made  up  its  mind 
what  it  is.  Childishly  deceivable  by  charlatans  on  every 
other  subject, — imposed  -on  by  pedantry,  by  new  and 
unfounded  science,  by  ancient  and  unfounded  reputation,  a 
prey  to  pomposity,  overrun  with  recondite  fools,  ignorant  of 
all  else, — society  knows  itself.  The  world  knows  a  man  of 
the  world.  A  certain  tradition  pervades  it ;  a  disciplina  of 
the  market-place  teaches  what  the  collective  society  of  men 
has  ever  been,  and  what,  so  long  as  the  nature  of  man  is  the 
same,  it  cannot  and  will  not  cease  to  be.  Literature,  the 
written  expression  of  human  nature  in  every  variety,  takes 
up  this  variety  likewise.  Ancient  literature  exhibits  it  from 
obvious  causes  in  a  more  simple  manner  than  modern 
literature  can.  Those  who  are  brought  up  in  times  like  the 
present  necessarily  hear  a  different  set  of  opinions,  fall  in 
with  other  words,  are  under  the  shadow  of  a  higher  creed. 
In  consequence,  they  cannot  have  the  simple  naivete  of  the 
old  world  ;  they  cannot  speak  with  easy  equanimity  of  the 
fugitiveness  of  life,  the  necessity  of  death,  of  goodness  as  a 
mean,  of  sin  as  an  extreme.  The  theory  of  the  universe  has 
ceased  to  be  an  open  question.  Still  the  spirit  of  Horace  is 
alive,  and  as  potent  as  that  of  any  man.  His  tone  is  that 
of  prime  ministers;  his  easy  philosophy  is  that  of  courts  and 
parliaments  ;  you  may  hear  his  words  where  no  other  foreign 
words  are  ever  heard.  He  is  but  the  extreme  and  perfect 
type  of  a  whole  class  of  writers,  some  of  whom  exist  in  every 
literary  age,  and  who  give  an  expression  to  what  we  may  call 
the  poetry  of  equanimity,  that  is,  the  world's  view  of  itself ; 
its  self-satisfaction,  its  conviction  that  you  must  bear  what 
comes,  not  hope  for  much,  think  some  evil,  never  be  excited, 
admire  little,  and  then  you  will  be  at  peace.  This  creed  does 
not  sound  attractive  in  description.  Nothing,  it  has  been 
VOL.  ii.  4 


50  Literary  Studies. 


said,  is  so  easy  as  to  be  "  religious  on  paper"  :  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  rather  difficult  to  be  worldly  in  speculation ;  the 
mind  of  man,  when  its  daily  maxims  are  put  before  it,  revolts 
from  anything  so  stupid,  so  mean,  so  poor.  It  requires  a 
consummate  art  to  reconcile  men-in  print  to  that  moderate 
and  insidious  philosophy  which  creeps  into  all  hearts,  colours 
all  speech,  influences  all  action.  We  may  not  stiffen  common- 
sense  into  a  creed  ;  our  very  ambition  forbids  : — 

"  It  hears  a  voice  within  us  tell 
Calm's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well : 
'Tis  all  perhaps  which  man  acquires ; 
But  'tis  not  what  our  youth  desires  ".1 

Still  a  great  artist  may  succeed  in  making  "  calm  "  interest- 
ing. Equanimity  has  its  place  in  literature  ;  the  poetry  of 
equipoise  is  possible.  Poems  of  society  have,  thus,  two 
divisions  :  that  which  we  mentioned  first,  the  expression  of 
the  feelings  which  are  called  out  by  the  accidents  of  society ; 
next,  the  harmonised  expression  of  that  philosophy  of 
indifference  with  which  the  world  regards  the  fortunes  of 
individuals  and  its  own. 

We  have  said  that  no  modern  nation  can  produce  litera- 
ture embodying  this  kind  of  cool  reflection  and  delineation  as 
it  was  once  produced.  By  way  of  compensation,  however, 
it  may  be,  it  no  doubt  is,  easier  now  to  produce  the  lyrical 
kind  of  poems  of  society — the  light  expression  of  its  light 
emotions — than  it  was  in  ancient  times.  Society  itself  is 
better.  There  is  something  hard  in  paganism,  which  is 
always  felt  even  in  the  softest  traits  of  the  most  delicate 
society  in  antiquity.  The  social  influence  of  women  in 
modern  times  gives  an  interest,  a  little  pervading  excitement, 
to  social  events.  Civilisation,  besides,  has  made  comfort 
possible ;  it  has,  at  least  in  part,  created  a  scene  in  which 
society  can  be  conducted.  Its  petty  conveniences  may  or 

1  Matthew  Arnold  :  "  Youth  and  Calm  ". 


Ber anger.  51 

may  not  be  great  benefits  according  to  a  recondite  philosophy; 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  actual  men  and  women  in 
actual  conversation  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  their 
feet  should  not  be  cold  ;  that  their  eyes  and  mouths  should 
not  be  troubled  with  smoke  ;  that  sofas  should  be  good,  and 
attractive  chairs  many.  Modern  times  have  the  advantage 
of  the  ancient  in  the  scenery  of  flirtation.  The  little  boy 
complained  that  you  could  not  find  "  drawing-room  "  in  'the 
dictionary.  Perhaps  even  because  our  reflections  are  deeper, 
our  inner  life  less  purely  pagan,  our  apparent  life  is  softer 
and  easier.  Some  have  said,  that  one  reason  why  physical 
science  made  so  little  progress  in  ancient  times  was,  that 
people  were  in  doubt  about  more  interesting  things  ;  men 
must  have,  it  has  been  alleged,  a  settled  creed  as  to  human 
life  and  human  hopes,  before  they  will  attend  to  shells  and 
snails  and  pressure.  And  whether  this  be  so  or  not,  perhaps 
a  pleasant  society  is  only  possible  to  persons  at  ease  as  to 
what  is  beyond  society.  Those  only  can  lie  on  the  grass 
who  fear  no  volcano  underneath,  and  can  bear  to  look  at  the 
blue  vault  above. 

Among  modern  nations  it  is  not  difficult  to  say  where 
we  should  look  for  success  in  the  art  of  social  poetry. 
"Wherever,"  said  Mr.  Lewes  the  other  day,  "the  French  go, 
they  take  what  they  call  their  civilisation — that  is,  a  cafe  and 
a  theatre."  And  though  this  be  a  trifle  severe,  yet  in  its 
essence  its  meaning  is  correct.  The  French  have  in  some 
manner  or  other  put  their  mark  on  all  the  externals  of 
European  life.  The  essence  of  every  country  remains  little 
affected  by  their  teaching;  but  in  all  the  superficial  embellish- 
ments of  society  they  have  enjoined  the  fashion  ;  and  the 
very  language  in  which  those  embellishments  are  spoken  of, 
shows  at  once  whence  they  were  derived.  Something  of 
this  is  doubtless  due  to  the  accidents  of  a  central  position, 
and  an  early  and  prolonged  political  influence  ;  but  more  to 


52  Literary  Studies. 


a  certain  neatness  of  nature,  a  certain  finish  of  the  senses, 
which  enables  them  more  easily  than  others  to  touch  lightly 
the  light  things  of  society,  to  see  the  comme-il-faut.  "  I 
like,"  said  a  good  judge,  "to  hear  a  Frenchman  talk;  he 
strikes  a  light."  On  a  hundred  topics  he  gives  the  bright 
sharp  edge,  where  others  have  only  a  blunt  approxima- 
tion. 

Nor  is  this  anticipation  disappointed.  Reviewers  do  not 
advance  such  theories  unless  they  correspond  with  known 
results.  For  many  years  the  French  have  not  been  more 
celebrated  for  memoirs  which  professedly  describe  a  real 
society  than  they  have  been  for  the  light  social  song  which 
embodies  its  sentiments  and  pours  forth  its  spirit.  The 
principle  on  which  such  writings  are  composed  is  the  taking 
some  incident — not  voluntarily  (for  the  incident  doubtless  of 
itself  takes  a  hold  on  the  poet's  mind) — and  out  of  that 
incident  developing  all  which  there  is  in  it.  A  grave  form  is 
of  course  inconsistent  with  such  art.  The  spirit  of  such 
things  is  half-mirthful ;  a  very  profound  meaning  is  rarely 
to  be  expected  ;  but  little  incidents  are  not  destitute  of  mean- 
ing, and  a  delicate  touch  will  delineate  it  in  words.  A 
profound  excitement  likewise  such  poems  cannot  produce  ; 
they  do  not  address  the  passions  or  the  intuitions,  the  heart 
or  the  soul,  but  a  gentle  pleasure,  half  sympathy,  half 
amusement,  is  that  at  which  they  aim.  They  do  not  please 
us  equally  in  all  moods  of  mind  :  sometimes  they  seem 
nothing  and  nonsense,  like  society  itself.  We  must  not  be 
too  active  or  too  inactive,  to  like  them  ;  the  tension  of  mind 
must  not  be  too  great;  in  our  highest  moods  the  littlenesses 
of  life  are  petty ;  the  mind  must  not  be  obtusely  passive ; 
light  touches  will  not  stimulate  a  sluggish  inaction.  This 
dependence  on  the  mood  of  mind  of  the  reader  makes  it 
dangerous  to  elucidate  this  sort  of  art  by  quotation  ; 
Be'ranger  has,  however,  the  following  : — 


Beranger.  53 


"  Laideur  et  Beaute. 
"  Sa  trop  grande  beaute  m'obsede  ; 

C'est  un  masque  aisement  trompeur. 

Oui,  je  voudrais  qu'elle  fut  laide, 

Mais  laide,  laide  a  faire  peur. 

Belle  ainsi  faut-il  que  je  1'aime  1 

Dieu,  reprends  ce  don  eclatant ; 

Je  le  demande  a  1'enfer  meme  : 
Qu'elle  soit  laide  et  que  je  1'aime  autant. 

f."  A  ces  mots  m'apparait  le  diable  ; 

C'est  le  pere  de  la  laideur. 

1  Rendons-la,'  dit-il,  '  effroyable, 

De  tes  rivaux  trompons  1'ardeur. 

J'aime  assez  ces  metamorphoses. 

Ta  belle  ici  vient  en  chantant ; 

Perles,  tombez  ;  fanez-vous,  roses : 
La  voila  laide,  et  tu  1'aimes  autant.' 

"  — Laide  !  moi  ?  dit-elle  etonnee. 
Elle  s'approche  d'un  miroir, 
Doute  d'abord,  puis,  consternee, 
Tombe  en  un  morne  desespoir. 
'  Pour  moi  seul  tu  jurais  de  vivre,' 
Lui  dis-je,  a  ses  pieds  me  jetant  ; 
'  A  mon  seul  amour  il  te  livre. 

Plus  laide  encore,  je  t'aimerais  autant.' 

"  Ses  yeux  eteints  fondent  en  larmes, 

Alors  sa  douleur  m'attendrit. 

'  Ah  !  rendez,  rendez-lui  ses  charmes.' 

'  • — -Soil  1 '  repond  Satan,  qui  sourit. 

Ainsi  que  nait  la  fraiche  aurore, 

Sa  beaute  renait  a  1'instant. 

Elle  est,  je  crois,  plus  belle  encore  : 
Elle  est  plus  belle,  et  moi  je  1'aime  autant. 

"  Vite  au  miroir  elle  s'assure 
Qu'on  lui  rend  bien  tous  ses  appas  ; 
Des  pleurs  restent  sur  sa  figure, 
Qu'elle  essuie  en  grondant  tout  bas, 


54  Literary  Studies. 


Satan  s'envole,  et  la  cruelle 
Fuit  et  s'ecrie  en  me  quittant : 
'  Jamais  fille  que  Dieu  fit  belle 
Ne  doit  aimer  qui  peut  1'aimer  autant '." 

And  this  is  even  a  more  characteristic  specimen  : — 

"  La  Mouche. 

"  Au  bruit  de  notre  gaite  folle, 
Au  bruit  des  verres,  des  chansons, 
Quelle  mouche  murmure  et  vole, 
Et  revient  quand  nous  la  chassons  ?  (bis.) 
C'est  quelque  dieu,  je  le  soup9onne, 
Qu'un  peu  de  bonheur  rend  jaloux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne,  \,,.   , 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous.       / 

'•  Transformee  en  mouche  hideuse, 
Amis,  oui,  c'est,  j'en  suis  certain, 
La  Raison,  deite  grondeuse, 
Qu'irrite  un  si  joyeux  festin. 
L'orage  approche,  le  ciel  tonne, 
Voila  ce  que  dit  son  courroux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

"  C'est  la  Raison  qui  vient  me  dire  : 
'  A  ton  age  on  vit  en  reclus. 
Ne  bois  plus  tant,  cesse  de  rire, 
Cesse  d'aimer,  ne  chante  plus.' 
Ainsi  son  beffroi  toujours  sonne 
Aux  lueurs  des  feux  les  plus  cloux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

"  C'est  la  Raison,  gare  a  Lisette  1 
Son  dard  la  menace  toujours. 
Dieux  !  il  perce  la  collerette  : 
Le  sang  coule  !  accourez,  Amours  ! 
Amours  !  poursuivez  la  felonne  ; 
Qu'elle  expire  enfin  sous  vos  coups. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 
Cju'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous, 


Beranger.  55 

"  Victoire  !  amis,  elle  se  noie 
Dans  I'ai'  que  Lise  a  verse. 
Victoire  !  et  qu'aux  mains  de  la  Joie 
Le  sceptre  enfin  soit  replace,     (bis.) 
Un  souffle  ebranle  sa  couronne  ; 
Une  mouche  nous  troublait  tous. 
Ne  craignons  plus  qu'elle  bourdonne,  "I  /,  •   v 
Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous."    J 

To  make  poetry  out  of  a  fly  is  a  difficult  operation.  It 
used  to  be  said  of  the  Lake  school  of  criticism,  in  Mr. 
Wordsworth's  early  and  more  rigid  days,  that  there  was  no 
such  term  as  "  elegant  "  in  its  nomenclature.  The  reason  is 
that,  dealing,  or  attempting  to  deal,  only  with  the  essential 
aboriginal  principles  of  human  nature,  that  school  had  no 
room  and  no  occasion  for  those  minor  contrivances  of 
thought  and  language  which  are  necessary  to  express  the 
complex  accumulation  of  little  feelings,  the  secondary  growth 
of  human  emotion.  The  underwood  of  nature  is  "  elegant "  ; 
the  bare  ascending  forest-tree  despises  what  is  so  trivial, — it 
is  grave  and  solemn.  To  such  verses,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
have  been  quoted,  "  elegance "  is  essential ;  the  delicate 
finish  of  fleeting  forms  is  the  only  excellence  they  can  have. 

The  characteristic  deficiencies  of  French  literature  have 
no  room  to  show  themselves  in  this  class  of  art.  "  Though 
France  herself  denies,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  yet  all  other 
nations  with  one  voice  proclaim  her  inferiority  to  her  rivals 
in  poetry  and  romance,  and  in  all  the  other  elevated  fields  of 
fiction.  A  French  Dante,  or  Michael  Angelo,  or  Cervantes, 
or  Murillo,  or  Goethe,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  we  at  once 
perceive  to  be  a  mere  anomaly  ;  a  supposition  which  may, 
indeed,  be  proposed  in  terms,  but  which  in  reality  is  incon- 
ceivable and  impossible."  In  metaphysics,  the  reason  seems 
to  be  that  the  French  character  is  incapable  of  being 
mastered  by  an  unseen  idea,  without  being  so  tyrannised 
Over  by  it  as  to  be  incapable  of  artistic  development.  Such 


56  Literary  Studies. 


a  character  as  Robespierre's  may  explain  what  we  mean. 
His  entire  nature  was  taken  up  and  absorbed  in  certain 
ideas  ;  he  had  almost  a  vanity  in  them  ;  he  was  of  them, 
and  they  were  of  him.  But  they  appear  in  his  mind,  in  his 
speeches,  in  his  life,  in  their  driest  and  barest  form  ;  they 
have  no  motion,  life,  or  roundness.  We  are  obliged  to  use 
many  metaphors  remotely  and  with  difficulty  to  indicate  the 
procedure  of  the  imagination.  In  one  of  these  metaphors 
we  figure  an  idea  of  imagination  as  a  living  thing,  a  kind  of 
growing  plant,  with  a  peculiar  form,  and  ever  preserving  its 
identity,  but  absorbing  from  the  earth  and  air  all  kindred, 
suitable,  and,  so  to  say,  annexable  materials.  In  a  mind 
such  as  Robespierre's,  in  the  type  of  the  fanatic  mind,  there 
is  no  such  thing.  The  ideas  seem  a  kind  of  dry  hard  cap- 
sules, never  growing,  never  enlarging,  never  uniting. 
Development  is  denied  them  ;  they  cannot  expand,  or  ripen, 
or  mellow.  Dogma  is  a  dry  hard  husk ;  poetry  has  the  soft 
down  of  the  real  fruit.  Ideas  seize  on  the  fanatic  mind  just 
as  they  do  on  the  poetical ;  they  have  the  same  imperious 
ruling  power.  The  difference  is,  that  in  the  one  the  impelling 
force  is  immutable,  iron,  tyrannical ;  in  the  other  the  rule  is 
expansive,  growing,  free,  taking  up  from  all  around  it 
moment  by  moment  whatever  is  fit,  as  in  the  political  world 
a  great  constitution  arises  through  centuries,  with  a  shape 
that  does  not  vary,  but  with  movement  for  its  essence  and 
the  fluctuation  of  elements  for  its  vitality.  A  thin  poor  mind 
like  Robespierre's  seems  pressed  and  hampered  by  the  bony 
fingers  of  a  skeleton  hand  ;  a  poet's  is  expanded  and  warmed 
at  the  same  time  that  it  is  impelled  by  a  pure  life-blood 
of  imagination.  The  French,  as  we  have  said,  are  hardly 
capable  of  this.  When  great  remote  ideas  seize  upon 
them  at  all,  they  becom§  fanatics.  The  wild,  chimerical, 
revolutionary,  mad  Frenchman  has  the  stiffest  of  human 
minds.  He  is  under  the  law  of  his  creed ;  he  has  not 


Ber  anger.  57 

attained  to  the  higher  freedom  of  the  impelling  imagination. 
The  prosing  rhetoric  of  the  French  tragedy  shows  the  same 
defect  in  another  form.  The  ideas  which  should  have 
become  living  realities,  remain  as  lean  abstractions.  The 
characters  are  speaking  officials,  jets  of  attenuated  oratory. 
But  exactly  on  this  very  account  the  French  mind  has  a 
genius  for  the  poetry  of  society.  Unable  to  remove  itself 
into  the  higher  region  of  imagined  forms,  it  has  the  quickest 
detective  insight  into  the  exact  relation  of  surrounding  super- 
ficial phenomena.  There  are  two  ways  of  putting  it :  either 
being  fascinated  by  the  present,  they  cannot  rise  to  what  is 
not  present ;  or  being  by  defect  of  nature  unable  to  rise  to 
what  is  not  present,  they  are  concentrated  and  absorbed  in 
that  which  is  so.  Of  course  there  ought  not  to  be,  but  there 
is,  a  world  of  bonbons,  of  salons,  of  esprit.  Living  in  the 
present,  they  have  the  poetry  of  the  present.  The  English 
genius  is  just  the  opposite.  Our  cumbrous  intellect  has  no 
call  to  light  artificialities.  We  do  not  excel  in  punctuated 
detail  or  nicely-squared  elaboration.  It  puts  us  out  of 
patience  that  others  should.  A  respectable  Englishman 
murmured  in  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  "  I  wish  I  had  a  hunch  of 
mutton ".  He  could  not  bear  the  secondary  niceties  with 
which  he  was  surrounded.  Our  art  has  the  same  principle. 
We  excel  in  strong,  noble  imagination,  in  solid  stuff. 
Shakespeare  is  tough  work ;  he  has  the  play  of  the  rising 
energy,  the  buoyant  freedom  of  the  unbounded  mind  ;  but 
no  writer  is  so  destitute  of  the  simplifying  dexterities  of  the 
manipulating  intellect. 

It  is  dangerous  for  a  foreigner  to  give  an  opinion  on 
ntinutice  of  style,  especially  on  points  affecting  the  character- 
istic excellences  of  national  style.  The  French  language  is 
always  neat ;  all  French  styles  somehow  seem  good.  But 
Beranger  appears  to  have  a  peculiar  neatness.  He  tells  us 
that  all  his  songs  are  the  production  of  a  painful  effort.  Jf 


58  Literary  Studies. 


so,  the  reader  should  be  most  grateful  ;  he  suffers  no  pain. 
The  delicate  elaboration  of  the  writer  has  given  a  singular 
currency  to  the  words.  Difficult  writing  is  rarely  easy  read- 
ing. It  can  never  be  so  when  the  labour  is  spent  in  piecing 
together  elements  not  joined  by  an  insensible  touch  of 
imagination.  The  highest  praise  is  due  to  a  writer  whose 
ideas  are  more  delicately  connected  by  unconscious  genius 
than  other  men's  are,  and  yet  who  spends  labour  and  toil  in 
giving  the  production  a  yet  cunninger  finish,  a  still  smoother 
connection.  The  characteristic  aloofness  of  the  Gothic 
mind,  its  tendency  to  devote  itself  to  what  is  not  present,  is 
represented  in  composition  by  a  want  of  care  in  the  petti- 
nesses of  style.  A  certain  clumsiness  pervades  all  tongues 
of  German  origin.  Instead  of  the  language  having  been 
sharpened  and  improved  by  the  constant  keenness  of 
attentive  minds,  it  has  been  habitually  used  obtusely  and 
crudely.  Light,  loquacious  Gaul  has  for  ages  been  the 
contrast.  If  you  take  up  a  pen  just  used  by  a  good  writer, 
for  a  moment  you  seem  to  write  rather  well.  A  language 
long  employed  by  a  delicate  and  critical  society  is  a  treasure 
of  dexterous  felicities.  It  is  not,  according  to  the  fine 
expression  of  Mr.  Emerson,  "  fossil  poetry  "  ; l  it  is  crystal- 
lised esprit. 

A  French  critic  has  praised  Beranger  for  having  retained 
the  refrain,  or  burden,  "  la  rime  de  I'air,"  as  he  calls  it. 
Perhaps  music  is  more  necessary  as  an  accompaniment  to 
the  poetry  of  society  than  it  is  to  any  other  poetry.  Without 
a  sensuous  reminder,  we  might  forget  that  it  was  poetry  ; 
especially  in  a  sparkling,  glittering,  attenuated  language,  we 
might  be  absorbed  as  in  the  defined  elegances  of  prose.  In 
half-trivial  compositions  we  easily  forget  the  little  central 
fancy.  The  music  prevents  this :  it  gives  oneness  to  the 

1  Essay  on  "  The  Poet  ", 


Beranger.  59 

parts,  pieces  together  the  shavings  of  the  intellect,  makes 
audible  the  flow  of  imagination. 

The  poetry  of  society  tends  to  the  poetry  of  love.  All 
poetry  tends  that  way.  By  some  very  subtle  links,  which  no 
metaphysician  has  skilfully  tracked,  the  imagination,  even  in 
effects  and  employments  which  seem  remote,  is  singularly  so 
connected.  One  smiles  to  see  the  feeling  recur.  Half  the 
poets  can  scarcely  keep  away  from  it :  in  the  high  and  dry 
epic  you  may  see  the  poet  return  to  it.  And  perhaps  this  is 
not  unaccountable.  The  more  delicate  and  stealing  the  sen- 
suous element,  the  more  the  mind  is  disposed  to  brood  upon 
it;  the  more  we  dwell  on  it  in  stillness,  the  more  it  influences 
the  wandering,  hovering  faculty  which  we  term  imagination. 
The  first  constructive  effort  of  imagination  is  beyond  the 
limit  of  consciousness  ;  the  faculty  works  unseen.  But  we 
know  that  it  works  in  a  certain  soft  leisure  only  :  and  this  in 
ordinary  minds  is  almost  confined  to,  in  the  highest  is  most 
commonly  accompanied  by,  the  subtlest  emotion  of  reverie. 
So  insinuating  is  that  feeling,  that  no  poet  is  alive  to  all  its 
influences  ;  so  potent  is  it,  that  the  words  of  a  great  poet,  in 
our  complex  modern  time,  are  rarely  ever  free  from  its  traces. 
The  phrase  "  stealing  calm,"  which  most  naturally  and 
graphically  describes  the  state  of  soul  in  which  the  imagina- 
tion works,  quite  equally  expresses,  it  is  said,  the  coming  in 
and  continuance  of  the  not  uncommon  emotion.  Passing, 
however,  from  such  metaphysics,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
believing  that  the  poetry  of  society  will  tend  to  the  most 
romantic  part  of  society, — away  from  aunts  and  uncles, 
antiquaries  and  wigs,  to  younger  and  pleasanter  elements. 
The  talk  of  society  does  so  ;  probably  its  literature  will  do  so 
likewise.  There  are,  nevertheless,  some  limiting  considera- 
tions, which  make  this  tendency  less  all-powerful  than  we 
might  expect  it  to  be.  In  the  first  place,  the  poetry  of 
society  cannot  deal  with  passion.  Its  light  touch  is  not 


6o.  Literary  Studies. 


competent  to  express  eager,  intense  emotion.  Rather,  we 
should  say,  the  essential  nature  of  the  poetry  of  amusement 
is  inconsistent  with  those  rugged,  firm,  aboriginal  elements 
which  passion  brings  to  the  surface.  The  volcano  is  incon- 
sistent with  careless  talk  ;  you  cannot  comfortably  associate 
with  lava.  Such  songs  as  those  of  Burns  are  the  very  anti- 
thesis to  the  levity  of  society.  A  certain  explicitness 
pervades  them  : — 

"  Come,  let  me  take  thee  to  my  breast, 
And  pledge  we  ne'er  shall  sunder ; 
And  I  shall  spurn  as  vilest  dust 
The  world's  wealth  and  grandeur  ". 

There  is  a  story  of  his  having  addressed  a  lady  in  society, 
some  time  after  he  came  to  Edinburgh,  in  this  direct  style, 
and  being  offended  that  she  took  notice  of  it.  The  verses 
were  in  English,  and  were  not  intended  to  mean  anything 
particular,  only  to  be  an  elegant  attention  ;  but  you  might  as 
well  ask  a  young  lady  to  take  brandy  with  you  as  compliment 
her  in  this  intense  manner.  The  eager  peasant-poet  was  at 
fault  in  the  polished  refinements  of  the  half-feeling  drawing- 
room.  Again,  the  poetry  of  society  can  scarcely  deal  with 
affection.  No  poetry,  except  in  hints,  and  for  moments, 
perhaps  ever  can.  You  might  as  well  tell  secrets  to  the  town- 
crier.  The  essence  of  poetry  somehow  is  publicity.  It  is 
very  odd  when  one  reads  many  of  the  sentiments  which  are 
expressed  there, — the  brooding  thought,  the  delicate  feeling, 
the  high  conception.  What  is  the  use  of  telling  these  to  the 
mass  of  men  ?  Will  the  grocer  feel  them  ? — will  the  greasy 
butcher  in  the  blue  coat  feel  them  ?  Are  there  not  some 
emphatic  remarks  by  Lord  Byron  on  Mr.  Sanders  ("  the 
d — d  saltfish  seller  "  of  Venice), 1  who  could  not  appreciate 

*  Moore's  Byron, 


Beranger.  61 

Don  yuan  ?  Nevertheless,  for  some  subtle  reason  or  other, 
poets  do  crave,  almost  more  than  other  men,  the  public 
approbation.  To  have  a  work  of  art  in  your  imagination, 
and  that  no  one  else  should  know  of  it,  is  a  great  pain.  But 
even  this  craving  has  its  limits.  Art  can  only  deal  with  the 
universal.  Characters,  sentiments,  actions,  must  be  de- 
scribed in  what  in  the  old  language  might  be  called  their 
conceptual  shape.  There  must  always  be  an  idea  in  them. 
If  we  compare  a  great  character  in  fiction,  say  that  of 
Hamlet,  with  a  well-known  character  in  life,  we  are  struck 
almost  at  once  by  the  typical  and  representative  nature  of  the 
former.  We  seem  to  have  a  more  summary  conception  of  it, 
if  the  phrase  may  be  allowed,  than  we  have  of  the  people  we 
know  best  in  reality.  Indeed,  our  notion  of  the  fictitious 
character  rather  resembles  a  notion  of  actual  persons  of  whom 
we  know  a  little,  and  but  a  little, — of  a  public  man,  suppose, 
of  whom  from  his  speeches  and  writings  we  know  something, 
but  with  whom  we  never  exchanged  a  word.  We  generalise 
a  few  traits  ;  we  do  what  the  historian  will  have  to  do  here- 
after ;  we  make  a  man,  so  to  speak,  resembling  the  real  one, 
but  more  defined,  more  simple  and  comprehensible.  The 
objects  on  which  affection  turns  are  exactly  the  opposite.  In 
their  essence  they  are  individual,  peculiar.  Perhaps  they 
become  known  under  a  kind  of  confidence  ;  but  even  if  not, 
Nature  has  hallowed  the  details  of  near  life  by  an  inevitable 
secrecy.  You  cannot  expect  other  persons  to  feel  them ;  you 
cannot  tell  your  own  intellect  what  they  are.  An  individu- 
ality lurks  in  our  nature.  Each  soul  (as  the  divines  speak) 
clings  to  each  soul.  Poetry  is  impossible  on  such  points  as 
these  :  they  seem  too  sacred,  too  essential.  The  most  that 
it  can  do  is,  by  hints  and  little  marks  in  the  interstices  of  a 
universalised  delineation,  to  suggest  that  there  is  something 
more  than  what  is  stated,  and  more  inward  and  potent  than 
what  is  stated.  Affection  as  a  settled  subject  is  incompatible 


62  Literary  Studies. 


with  art.  And  thus  the  poetry  of  society  is  limited  on  its 
romantic  side  in  two  ways  :  first,  by  the  infinite,  intense 
nature  of  passion,  which  forces  the  voice  of  art  beyond  the 
social  tone;  and  by  the  confidential,  incomprehensible  nature 
of  affection,  which  will  not  bear  to  be  developed  for  the  public 
by  the  fancy  in  any  way. 

Being  so  bounded  within  the  ordinary  sphere  of  their  art, 
poets  of  this  world  have  contrived  or  found  a  substitute.  In 
every  country  there  is  a  society  which  is  no  society.  The 
French,  which  is  the  most  worldly  of  literatures,  has  devoted 
itself  to  the  delineation  of  this  outside  world.  There  is  no 
form,  comic  or  serious,  dramatic  or  lyrical,  in  which  the 
subject  has  not  been  treated  :  the  burden  is — 

"  Lisette,  ma  Lisette, 
Tu  m'as  trompe  toujours; 
Mais  vive  la  grisette  ! 

Je  veux,  Lisette, 
Boire  a  nos  amours." 

There  is  obviously  no  need  of  affection  in  this  society.  The 
whole  plot  of  the  notorious  novel,  La  Dame  aux  Camelias, — 
and  a  very  remarkable  one  it  is, — is  founded  on  the  incon- 
gruity of  real  feeling  with  this  world,  and  the  singular  and 
inappropriate  consequences  which  result,  if,  by  any  rare 
chance,  it  does  appear  there.  Passion  is  almost  a  fortiori 
out  of  the  question.  The  depths  of  human  nature  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  life.  On  this  account,  perhaps,  it  is 
that  it  harmonises  so  little  with  the  English  literature  and 
character.  An  Englishman  can  scarcely  live  on  the  surface ; 
his  passions  are  too  strong,  his  power  of  finesse  too  little. 
Accordingly,  since  Defoe,  who  treated  the  subject  with  a 
coarse  matter-of-factness,  there  has  been  nothing  in  our 
literature  of  this  kind — nothing  at  least  professedly  devoted 
to  it.  How  far  this  is  due  to  real  excellence,  how  far  to  the 
bourgeois  and  not  very  outspoken  temper  of  our  recent 


Beranger.  63 

writers,  we  need  not  in  this  place  discuss.  There  is  no 
occasion  to  quote  in  this  country  the  early  poetry  of 
Beranger,  at  least  not  the  sentimental  part  of  it.  We 
may  take,  in  preference,  one  of  his  poems  written  in  old, 
or  rather  in  middle  age  : — 

"  Cinquante  Ans. 

"  Pourquoi  ces  fleurs  ?  est-ce  ma  fete  ? 
Non  ;  ce  bouquet  vient  m'annoncer 
Qu'un  demi-siecle  sur  ma  tete 
Acheve  aujourd'hui  de  passer. 
Oh  !  combien  nos  jours  sont  rapides  1 
Oh  !  combien  j'ai  perdu  d'instants  1 
Oh  !  combien  je  me  sens  de  rides  J 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

"  A  cet  age,  tout  nous  echappe  ; 
Le  fruit  meurt  sur  1'arbre  jauni. 
Mais  a  ma  porte  quelqu'un  frappe ; 
N'ouvrons  point :  mon  role  est  fini. 
C'est,  je  gage,  un  docteur  qui  jette 
Sa  carte,  ou  s'est  loge  le  Temps. 
Jadis,  j'aurais  dit :  C'est  Lisette. 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

11  En  maux  cuisants  vieillesse  abonde  : 
C'est  la  goutte  qui  nous  meurtrit ; 
La  cecite,  prison  profonde  ; 
La  surdite,  dont  chacun  rit. 
Puis  la  raison,  lampe  qui  baisse, 
N'a  plus  que  des  feux  tremblotants. 
Enfants,  honorez  la  vieillesse  ! 
Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans  I 

"  Ciel  1  j'entends  la  Mort,  qui,  joyeuse, 
Arrive  en  se  frottant  les  mains. 
A  ma  porte  la  fossoyeuse 
Frappe  ;  adieu,  messieurs  les  humains  I 
En  bas,  guerre,  famine  et  peste ; 
En  haut,  plus  d'astres  eclatants. 
Ouvrons,  tandis  que  Dieu  me  reste. 
Helas  !  helas !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 


Literary  Studies. 


"  Mais  non  ;  c'est  vous  !  vous,  jeune  amie, 
Sceur  de  charite  des  amours! 
Vous  tirez  mon  ame  endormie 
Du  cauchemar  des  mauvais  jours. 
Semant  les  roses  de  votre  age 
Partout,  comme  fait  le  printemps, 
Parfumez  les  reves  d'un  sage. 
H61as  !  helas !  j'ai  cinquante  ans." 

This  is  the  last  scene  of  the  grisette,  of  whom  we  read  in  so 
many  songs  sparkling  with  youth  and  gaiety. 

A  certain  intellectuality,  however,  pervades  Beranger's 
love-songs.  You  seem  to  feel,  to  see,  not  merely  the 
emotion,  but  the  mind,  in  the  background  viewing  that 
emotion.  You  are  conscious  of  a  considerateness  qualifying 
and  contrasting  with  the  effervescing  champagne  of  the 
feelings  described.  Desire  is  rarefied  ;  sense  half  becomes 
an  idea.  You  may  trace  a  similar  metamorphosis  in  the 
poetry  of  passion  itself.  If  we  contrast  such  a  poem  as 
Shelley's  "  Epipsychidion "  with  the  natural  language  of 
common  passion,  we  see  how  curiously  the  intellect  can 
take  its  share  in  the  dizziness  of  sense.  In  the  same 
way,  in  the  lightest  poems  of  Beranger  we  feel  that  it 
may  be  infused,  may  interpenetrate  the  most  buoyant  effer- 
vescence. 

Nothing  is  more  odd  than  to  contrast  the  luxurious  and 
voluptuous  nature  of  much  of  Beranger's  poetry  with  the 
circumstances  of  his  life.  He  never  in  all  his  productive 
time  had  more  than  £"80  a  year ;  the  smallest  party  of 
pleasure  made  him  live,  he  tells  us  himself,  most  ascetically 
for  a  week ;  so  far  from  leading  the  life  of  a  Sybarite,  his 
youth  was  one  of  anxiety  and  privation.  A  more  worldly  poet 
has  probably  never  written,  but  no  poet  has  shown  in  life  so 
philosophic  an  estimate  of  this  world's  goods.  His  origin 
is  very  unaristocratic.  He  was  born  in  August,  1780,  at  the 
house  of  his  grandfather,  a  poor  old  tailor.  Of  his  mother 


Beranger.  65 

we  hear  nothing.  His  father  was  a  speculative,  sanguine 
man,  who  never  succeeded.  His  principal  education  was 
given  him  by  an  aunt,  who  taught  him  to  read  and  to  write, 
and  perhaps  generally  incited  his  mind.  His  school-teaching 
tells  of  the  philosophy  of  the  revolutionary  time.  By  way  of 
primary  school  for  the  town  of  Peronne,  a  patriotic  member 
of  the  National  Assembly  had  founded  an  institut  cTenfants. 
"  It  offered,"  we  are  told,  "at  once  the  image  of  a  club  and 
that  of  a  camp ;  the  boys  wore  a  military  uniform ;  at  every 
public  event  they  named  deputations,  delivered  orations, 
voted  addresses :  letters  were  written  to  the  citizen  Robes- 
pierre and  the  citizen  Tallien."  Naturally,  amid  such  great 
affairs  there  was  no  time  for  mere  grammar ;  they  did  not 
teach  Latin.  Nor  did  Beranger  ever  acquire  any  knowledge 
of  that  language ;  and  he  may  be  said  to  be  destitute  of  what 
is  in  the  usual  sense  called  culture.  Accordingly,  it  has  in 
these  days  been  made  a  matter  of  wonder  by  critics,  whom 
we  may  think  pedantic,  that  one  so  destitute  should  be  able 
to  produce  such  works.  But  a  far  keener  judge  has  pro- 
nounced the  contrary.  Goethe,  who  certainly  did  not  under- 
value the  most  elaborate  and  artful  cultivation,  at  once 
pronounced  Beranger  to  have  "a  nature  most  happily  en- 
dowed, firmly  grounded  in  himself,  purely  developed  from 
himself,  and  quite  in  harmony  with  himself". l  In  fact,  as 
these  words  mean,  Beranger,  by  happiness  of  nature  or  self- 
attention,  has  that  centrality  of  mind,  which  is  the  really 
valuable  result  of  colleges  and  teaching.  He  puts  things 
together  ;  he  refers  things  to  a  principle ;  rather,  they  group 
themselves  in  his  intelligence  insensibly  round  a  principle. 
There  is  nothing  distrait  in  his  genius;  the  man  has  attained 
to  be  himself;  a  cool  oneness,  a  poised  personality  pervades 
him.  "The  unlearned,"  it  has  been  said,  "judge  at  random." 
Beranger  is  not  unlearned  in  this  sense.  There  is  no  one 

1  Conversations  with  Eckermann  and  Soret,  4th  May,  1830. 
VOL.   II.  5 


66  Literary  Studies. 


who  judges  more  simply,  smoothly,  and  uniformly.  His 
ideas  refer  to  an  exact  measure.  He  has  mastered  what 
comes  before  him.  And  though  doubtless  unacquainted 
with  foreign  and  incongruous  literatures,  he  has  mastered 
his  own  literature,  which  was  shaped  by  kindred  persons,  and 
has  been  the  expression  of  analogous  natures  ;  and  this  has 
helped  him  in  expressing  himself. 

In  the  same  way,  his  poor  youth  and  boyhood  have 
given  a  reality  to  his  productions.  He  seems  to  have  had 
this  in  mind  in  praising  the  "  practical  education  which  I 
have  received  ".  He  was  bred  a  printer ;  and  the  highest 
post  he  attained  was  a  clerkship  at  the  university,  worth,  as 
has  been  said,  £80  per  annum.  Accordingly  he  has  every- 
where a  sympathy  with  the  common  people,  an  unsought 
familiarity  with  them  and  their  life.  Sybarite  poetry  com- 
monly wants  this.  The  aristocratic  nature  is  superficial ;  it 
relates  to  a  life  protected  from  simple  wants,  depending  on 
luxurious  artifices.  "  Mamma,"  said  the  simple-minded 
young  nobleman,  "when  poor  people  have  no  bread,  why  do 
not  they  eat  buns  ?  they  are  much  better."  An  over-perfumed 
softness  pervades  the  poetry  of  society.  You  see  this  in  the 
songs  of  Moore,  the  best  of  the  sort  we  have ;  all  is 
beautiful,  soft,  half-sincere.  There  is  a  little  falsetto  in  the 
tone,  everything  reminds  you  of  the  drawing-room  and  the 
pianoforte  ;  and  not  only  so — for  all  poetry  of  society  must 
in  a  measure  do  this — but  it  seems  fit  for  no  other  scene. 
Naturalness  is  the  last  word  of  praise  that  would  be  suitable. 
In  the  scented  air  we  forget  that  there  is  a  pave  and  a 
multitude.  Perhaps  France  is  of  all  countries  which  have 
ever  existed  the  one  in  which  we  might  seek  an  exception 
from  this  luxurious  limitation.  A  certain  egalite  may  per- 
vade its  art  as  its  society.  There  is  no  such  difference  as 
with  us  between  the  shoeblack  and  the  gentleman.  A 
certain  refinement  is  very  common  ;  an  extreme  refinement 


Beranger.  67 

possibly  rare.     Beranger  was  able   to  write  his  poems  in 
poverty  :  they  are  popular  with  the  poor. 

A  success  even  greater  than  what  we  have  described  as 
having  been  achieved  by  Beranger  in  the  first  class  of  the 
poems  of  society — that  of  amusement — has  been  attained  by 
him  in  the  second  class,  expressive  of  epicurean  speculation. 
Perhaps  it  is  one  of  his  characteristics  that  the  two  are  for 
ever  running  one  into  another.  There  is  animation  in  his 
thinking  ;  there  is  meaning  in  his  gaiety.  It  requires  no 
elaborate  explanation  to  make  evident  the  connection  between 
scepticism  and  luxuriousness.  Every  one  thinks  of  the 
Sadducee  as  in  cool  halls  and  soft  robes  ;  no  one  supposes 
that  the  Sybarite  believes.  Pain  not  only  purifies  the  mind, 
but  deepens  the  nature.  A  simple,  happy  life  is  animal ;  it 
is  pleasant,  and  it  perishes.  All  writers  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  explanation  of  this  world's  view  of  itself 
are  necessarily  in  a  certain  measure  Sadducees.  The  world 
is  Sadducee  itself;  it  cannot  be  anything  else  without  recog- 
nising a  higher  creed,  a  more  binding  law,  a  more  solemn 
reality — without  ceasing  to  be  the  world.  Equanimity  is 
incredulous;  impartiality  does  not  care ;  an  indifferent  polite- 
ness is  sceptical.  Though  not  a  single  speculative  opinion 
is  expressed,  we  may  feel  this  in  "  Roger  Bontemps  "  : — 

"  Roger  Bontemps. 
"  Aux  gens  atrabilaires 
Pour  exemple  donne, 
En  un  temps  de  miseres 
Roger  Bontemps  est  ne. 
Vivre  obscur  a  sa  guise, 
Narguer  les  mecontents : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  devise 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"  Du  chapeau  de  son  pere 
Coiffe  dans  les  grands  jours, 


68  Literary  Studies. 


De  roses  ou  de  lierre 
Le  rajeunir  toujours  ; 
Mettre  un  manteau  de  bure, 
Vieil  ami  de  vingt  ans : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  parure 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"  Posseder  dans  sa  hutte 
Une  table,  un  vieux  lit, 
Des  cartes,  une  flute, 
Un  broc  que  Dieu  remplit, 
Un  portrait  de  maitresse, 
Un  coffre  et  rien  dedans : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  richesse 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"  Aux  enfants  de  la  ville 
Montrer  de  petits  jeux ; 
Etre  un  faiseur  habile 
De  contes  graveleux ; 
Ne  parler  que  de  danse 
Et  d'almanachs  chantants : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  science 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"  Faute  de  vin  d'elite, 
Sabler  ceux  du  canton ; 
Preferer  Marguerite 
Aux  dames  du  grand  ton  ; 
De  joie  et  de  tendresse 
Remplir  tous  ses  instants: 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  sagesse 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"  Dire  au  Ciel :  Je  me  fie, 
Mon  pere,  a  ta  bonte ; 
De  ma  philosophic 
Pardonne  la  gaite ; 
Que  ma  saison  derniere 
Soit  encore  un  printemps : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  priere 
Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 


Beranger.  69 

"  Vous,  pauvres  pleins  d'envie, 
Vous,  riches  desireux, 
Vous,  dont  le  char  devie 
Apres  un  cours  heureux ; 
Vous,  qui  perdrez  peut-etrc 
Des  litres  eclatants, 
Eh  gai !  prenez  pour  maitre 
Le  gros  Roger  Bontemps." 

At  the  same  time,  in  Beranger  the  scepticism  is  not  extreme. 
The  skeleton  is  not  paraded.  That  the  world  is  a  passing 
show,  a  painted  scene,  is  admitted  ;  you  seem  to  know  that 
it  is  all  acting  and  rouge  and  illusion  :  still  the  pleasantness 
of  the  acting  is  dwelt  on,  the  rouge  is  never  rubbed  off,  the 
dream  runs  lightly  and  easily.  No  nightmare  haunts  you, 
you  have  no  uneasy  sense  that  you  are  about  to  awaken. 
Persons  who  require  a  sense  of  reality  may  complain  ;  pain 
is  perhaps  necessary  to  sharpen  their  nerves,  a  tough  effort 
to  harden  their  consciousness  :  but  if  you  pass  by  this 
objection  of  the  threshold,  if  you  admit  the  possibility  of  a 
superficial  and  fleeting  world,  you  will  not  find  a  better  one 
than  Beranger's  world.  Suppose  all  the  world  were  a 
restaurant,  his  is  a  good  restaurant ;  admit  that  life  is  an 
effervescing  champagne,  his  is  the  best  for  the  moment. 

In  several  respects  Beranger  contrasts  with  Horace,  the 
poet  whom  in  general  he  most  resembles.  The  song  of 
"  Roger  Bontemps  "  suggests  one  of  the  most  obvious  differ- 
ences. It  is  essentially  democratic.  As  we  have  said  before, 
Beranger  is  the  poet  of  the  people  ;  he  himself  says,  Le 
peuple  c'est  ma  muse.  Throughout  Horace's  writings,  how- 
ever much  he  may  speak,  and  speak  justly,  of  the  simplicity 
of  his  tastes,  you  are  always  conscious  that  his  position  is 
exceptional.  Everybody  cannot  be  the  friend  of  Maecenas  ; 
every  cheerful  man  of  the  world  cannot  see  the  springs  of  the 
great  world.  The  intellect  of  most  self-indulgent  men  must 
satisfy  itself  with  small  indulgences.  Without  a  hard  ascent 


70  Literary  Studies. 


you  can  rarely  see  a  great  view.  Horace  had  the  almost 
unequalled  felicity  of  watching  the  characters  and  thoughts 
and  tendencies  of  the  governors  of  the  world,  the  nicest 
manipulation  of  the  most  ingenious  statesmen,  the  inner 
tastes  and  predilections  which  are  the  origin  of  the  most 
important  transactions  ;  and  yet  had  the  ease  and  pleasant- 
ness of  the  common  and  effortless  life.  So  rare  a  fortune 
cannot  be  a  general  model ;  the  gospel  of  Epicureanism 
must  not  ask  a  close  imitation  of  one  who  had  such  very 
special  advantages.  Beranger  gives  the  acceptors  of  that 
creed  a  commoner  type.  Out  of  nothing  but  the  most 
ordinary  advantages — the  garret,  the  almost  empty  purse, 
the  not  over-attired  grisette — he  has  given  them  a  model  of 
the  sparkling  and  quick  existence  for  which  their  fancy  is 
longing.  You  cannot  imagine  commoner  materials.  In 
another  respect  Horace  and  Beranger  are  remarkably  con- 
trasted. Beranger,  sceptical  and  indifferent  as  he  is,  has 
a  faith  in,  and  zeal  for,  liberty.  It  seems  odd  that  he  should 
care  for  that  sort  of  thing  ;  but  he  does  care  for  it.  Horace 
probably  had  a  little  personal  shame  attaching  to  such  ideas. 
No  regimental  officer  of  our  own  time  can  have  "joined"  in 
a  state  of  more  crass  ignorance,  than  did  the  stout  little 
student  from  Athens  in  all  probability  join  the  army  of 
Brutus;  the  legionaries  must  have  taken  the  measure  of  him, 
as  the  sergeants  of  our  living  friends.  Anyhow  he  was  not 
partial  to  such  reflections  ;  zeal  for  political  institutions  is 
quite  as  foreign  to  him  as  any  other  zeal.  A  certain  hope  in 
the  future  is  characteristic  of  Beranger — 

"  Qui  decouvrit  un  nouveau  monde  ? 
Un  fou  qu'on  raillait  en  tout  lieu." 

Modern  faith  colours  even  bystanding  scepticism.  Though 
probably  with  no  very  accurate  ideas  of  the  nature  of  liberty, 
Beranger  believes  that  it  is  a  great  good,  and  that  France  will 
have  it. 


Beranger.  ji 

The  point  in  which  Beranger  most  resembles  Horace  is 
that  which  is  the  most  essential  in  the  characters  of  them  both 
— their  geniality.     This  is  the  very  essence  of  the  poems  of 
society ;  it  springs  in  the  verses  of  amusement,  it  harmonises 
with  acquiescing  sympathy  the  poems  of  indifference.     And 
yet  few  qualities  in  writing  are  so  rare.     A  certain  malevo- 
lence enters  into  literary  ink  ;  the  point  of  the  pen  pricks. 
Pope  is  the  very  best  example  of  this.     With  every  desire  to 
imitate  Horace,  he  cannot  touch  any  of  his  subjects,  or  any 
kindred  subjects,  without  infusing  a  bitter  ingredient.     It  is 
not  given  to  the  children  of  men  to  be  philosophers  without 
envy.     Lookers-on  can  hardly  bear  the  spectacle  of  the  great 
world.     If  you  watch  the  carriages  rolling  down  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  you  will  try  to  depreciate  the  House  of  Lords. 
Idleness  is  cynical.     Both  Beranger  and  Horace  are  excep- 
tions to  this.     Both  enjoy  the  roll  of  the  wheels  ;  both  love 
the  glitter  of  the  carriages  ;    neither  is  angry  at  the  sun. 
Each  knows  that  he  is  as  happy  as  he  can  be — that  he  is  all 
that  he  can  be   in  his  contemplative  philosophy.     In  his 
means  of  expression  for  the  purpose  in  hand,  the  Frenchman 
has  the  advantage.     The  Latin  language  is  clumsy.     Light 
pleasure  was  an  exotic  in  the  Roman  world ;  the  terms  in 
which  you  strive  to  describe  it  suit  rather  the  shrill  camp  and 
droning  law-court.     In  English,  as  we  hinted  just  now,  we 
have  this  too.     Business  is  in  our  words  ;  a  too  heavy  sense 
clogs  our  literature  ;  even  in  a  writer  so  apt  as  Pope  at  the 
finesse  of  words,  you  feel  that  the  solid  Gothic  roots  impede 
him.     It  is  difficult  not  to  be  cumbrous.     The  horse  may  be 
fleet  and  light,  but  the  wheels  are  ponderous  and  the  road 
goes  heavily.      Beranger  certainly  has  not  this  difficulty  ; 
nobody  ever  denied  that  a  Frenchman  could  be  light,  that 
the  French  language  was  adapted  for  levity. 

When  we  ascribed  an  absence  of  bitterness  and  male- 
volence to   Beranger,  we  were  far  from  meaning  that  he  is 


72  Literary  Studies. 


not  a  satirist.  Every  light  writer  in  a  measure  must  be  so. 
Mirth  is  the  imagery  of  society  ;  and  mirth  must  make  fun 
of  somebody.  The  nineteenth  century  has  not  had  many 
shrewder  critics  than  its  easy-natured  poet.  Its  intense 
dulness  particularly  strikes  him.  He  dreads  the  dreariness 
of  the  Academy ;  pomposity  bores  him  ;  formalism  tires 
him  ;  he  thinks,  and  may  well  think,  it  dreary  to  have 

"  Pour  grands  hommes  des  journalistes, 
Pour  amusement  1'Opera  ". 

But  skilful  as  is  the  mirth,  its  spirit  is  genial  and  good- 
natured.  "You  have  been  laughing  at  me  constantly, 
Sydney,  for  the  last  seven  years,"  said  a  friend  to  the  late 
Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  "and  yet  in  all  that  time  you  never  said 
a  single  thing  to  me  that  I  wished  unsaid."  l  So  far  as  its 
essential  features  are  concerned,  the  nineteenth  century  may 
say  the  same  of  its  musical  satirist.  Perhaps,  however,  the 
Bourbons  might  a  little  object.  Clever  people  have  always 
a  little  malice  against  the  stupid. 

There  is  no  more  striking  example  of  the  degree  in  which 
the  gospel  of  good  works'has  penetrated  our  modern  society, 
than  that  Beranger  has  talked  of  "utilising  his  talent". 
The  epicurean  poet  considers  that  he  has  been  a  political 
missionary.  Well  may  others  be  condemned  to  the  penal 
servitude  of  industry,  if  the  lightest  and  idlest  of  skilful  men 
boasts  of  being  subjected  to  it.  If  Beranger  thinks  it  neces- 
sary to  think  that  he  has  been  useful,  others  may  well  think 
so  too ;  let  us  accept  the  heavy  doctrine  of  hard  labour ; 
there  is  no  other  way  to  heave  off  the  rubbish  of  this  world. 
The  mode  in  which  Beranger  is  anxious  to  prove  that  he 
made  his  genius  of  use,  is  by  diffusing  a  taste  for  liberty,  and 
expressing  an  enthusiasm  for  it ;  and  also,  as  we  suppose, 

1  Dudley:  Lady  Holland's  Memoirs  of  Sydney  Smith,  chap.  xi. 


Berangef.  J$ 

by  quizzing  those  rulers  of  France  who  have  not  shared 
either  -the  taste  or  the  enthusiasm.  Although,  however, 
such  may  be  the  idea  of  the  poet  himself,  posterity  will 
scarcely  confirm  it.  Political  satire  is  the  most  ephemeral 
kind  of  literature.  The  circumstances  to  which  it  applies 
are  local  and  temporary ;  the  persons  to  whom  it  applies  die. 
A  very  few  months  will  make  unintelligible  what  was  at  first 
strikingly  plain.  Beranger  has  illustrated  this  by  an  ad- 
mission. There  was  a  delay  in  publishing  the  last  volume 
of  his  poems,  many  of  which  relate  to  the  years  or  months 
immediately  preceding  the  Revolution  of  1830  ;  the  delay 
was  not  long,  as  the  volume  appeared  in  the  first  month  of 
1833,  yet  he  says  that  many  of  the  songs  relate  to  the  passing 
occurrences  of  a  period  "  deja  loin  de  nous".  On  so  shifting 
a  scene  as  that  of  French  political  life,  the  jests  of  each  act 
are  forgotten  with  the  act  itself;  the  eager  interest  of  each 
moment  withdraws  the  mind  from  thinking  of  or  dwelling 
on  anything  past.  And  in  all  countries  administration  is 
ephemeral ;  what  relates  to  it  is  transitory.  Satires  on  its 
detail  are  like  the  jests  of  a  public  office  ;  the  clerks  change, 
oblivion  covers  their  peculiarities  ;  the  point  of  the  joke  is 
forgotten.  There  are  some  considerable  exceptions  to  the 
saying  that  foreign  literary  opinion  is  a  "  contemporary 
posterity  "  ;  but  in  relation  to  satires  on  transitory  transac- 
tions it  is  exactly  expressive.  No  Englishman  will  now 
care  for  many  of  Beranger' s  songs  which  were  once  in  the 
mouths  of  all  his  countrymen,  which  coloured  the  manners 
of  revolutions,  perhaps  influenced  their  course.  The  fame 
of  a  poet  may  have  a  reference  to  politics;  but  it  will  be  only 
to  the  wider  species,  to  those  social  questions  which  never 
die,  the  elements  of  that  active  human  nature  which  is  the 
same  age  after  age.  Beranger  can  hardly  hope  for  this. 
Even  the  songs  which  relate  to  liberty  can  hardly  hope  for 
this  immortality.  They  have  the  vagueness  which  has  made 


74  Literary  Studies. 


French  aspirations  for  freedom  futile.  So  far  as  they  express 
distinct  feeling,  their  tendency  is  rather  anti-aristocratic  than 
in  favour  of  simple  real  liberty.  And  an  objection  to  mere 
rank,  though  a  potent,  is  neither  a  very  agreeable  nor  a  very 
poetical  sentiment.  Moreover,  when  the  love  of  liberty  is  to 
be  imaginatively  expressed,  it  requires  to  an  Englishman's 
ear  a  sound  bigger  and  more  trumpet-tongued  than  the  voice 
of  Beranger. 

On  a  deeper  view,  however,  an  attentive  student  will  dis- 
cover a  great  deal  that  is  most  instructive  in  the  political 
career  of  the  not  very  business-like  poet.  His  life  has  been 
contemporaneous  with  the  course  of  a  great  change  ;  and 
throughout  it  the  view  which  he  has  taken  of  the  current 
events  is  that  which  sensible  men  took  at  the  time,  and  which 
a  sensible  posterity  (and  these  events  will  from  their  size 
attract  attention  enough  to  insure  their  being  viewed  sensibly) 
is  likely  to  take.  Beranger  was  present  at  the  taking  of  the 
Bastille,  but  he  was  then  only  nine  years  old  ;  the  accuracy 
of  opinion  which  we  are  claiming  for  him  did  not  commence 
so  early.  His  mature  judgment  begins  with  the  career  of 
Napoleon  ;  and  no  one  of  the  thousands  who  have  written 
on  that  subject  has  viewed  it  perhaps  more  justly.  He  had 
no  love  for  the  despotism  of  the  Empire,  was  alive  to  the 
harshness  of  its  administration,  did  not  care  too  much  for  its 
glory,  must  have  felt  more  than  once  the  social  exhaustion. 
At  the  same  time,  no  man  was  penetrated  more  profoundly, 
no  literary  man  half  so  profoundly,  with  the  popular  admira- 
tion for  the  genius  of  the  empire.  His  own  verse  has  given 
the  truest  and  most  lasting  expression  of  it : — 

"  Les  Souvenirs  du  Petiple. 
"  On  parlera  de  sa  gloire 

Sous  le  chaume  bien  longtemps. 

L'humble  toil,  dans  cinquante  ans, 
Ne  connaitra  plus  d'autre  histoire. 


Beranger.  75 


La  viendront  les  villageois, 
Dire  alors  a  quelque  vieille  : 
'  Par  des  recits  d'autrefois, 
Mere,  abregez  notre  veille. 
Bien,  dit-on,  qu'il  nous  ait  nui, 
Le  peuple  encor  le  revere, 

Oui,  le  revere. 
Parlez-nous  de  lui,  grand'mere  ; 

Parlez-nous  de  lui.'     (bis.) 

"  '  Mes  enfants,  dans  ce  village, 
Suivi  de  rois,  il  passa. 
Voila  bien  longtemps  de  ?a  : 
Je  venais  d'entrer  en  menage. 
A  pied  grimpant  le  coteau 
Ou  pour  voir  je  m'etais  mise, 
II  avail  petit  chapeau 
Avec  redingote  grise. 
Pres  de  lui  je  me  troublai ; 
II  me  dit:  "  Bonjour,  ma  chere, 

Bonjour,  ma  chere  ".' 
— '  II  vous  a  parle,  grand'mere ! 
II  vous  a  parle  ! ' 

"  '  L'an  d'apres,  moi,  pauvre  femme, 
A  Paris  etant  un  jour, 
Je  le  vis  avec  sa  cour  : 
II  se  rendait  a  Notre-Dame. 

Tous  les  coeurs  etaient  contents  ; 
On  admirait  son  cortege. 
Chacun  disait :  "  Quel  beau  temps  ! 
Le  ciel  toujours  le  protege  ". 
Son  sourire  etait  bien  doux, 
D'un  fils  Dieu  le  rendait  pere, 

Le  rendait  pere.' 

— '  Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous,  grand'mere 
Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous  ! ' 

"  '  Mais,  quand  la  pauvre  Champagne 
Put  en  proie  aux  etrangers, 
Lui,  bravant  tous  les  dangers, 
Semblait  seul  tenir  la  campagne. 


76  Literary  Studies. 


Un  soir,  tout  comme  aujourd'hui, 
J'entends  frapper  a  la  porte. 
J'ouvre.     Bon  Dieu  !  c'etait  lui, 
Suivi  d'une  faible  escorte. 
II  s'asseoit  ou  me  voila, 
S'ecriant :  "  Oh !  quelle  guerre  1 

Oh  !  quelle  guerre  !  " ' 
— '  II  s'est  assis  la,  grand'mere  ! 

II  s'est  assis  la  ! ' 

"  '  J'ai  faim,'  dit-il ;  '  et  bien  vite 
Je  sers  piquette  et  pain  bis  ; 
Puis  il  seche  ses  habits, 
Meme  a  dormir  le  feu  1'invite. 
Au  reveil,  voyant  mes  pleurs, 
II  me  dit :  "  Bonne  esperance ! 
Je  cours,  de  tous  ses  malheurs, 
Sous  Paris,  venger  la  France  ". 
II  part ;  et,  comme  un  tr&sor, 
J'ai  depuis  garde  son  verre, 

Garde  son  verre.' 
'  Vous  1'avez  encor,  grand'mere  1 
Vous  1'avez  encor  ! ' 

"  '  Le  voici.     Mais  a  sa  perte 
Le  heros  fut  entraine. 
Lui,  qu'un  pape  a  couronne, 
Est  mort  dans  une  ile  deserte. 
Longtemps  aucun  ne  1'a  cru  ; 
On  disait :  "  II  va  paraitre  ; 
Par  mer  il  est  accouru  ; 
L'etranger  va  voir  son  maitre  ". 
Quand  d'erreur  on  nous  tira, 
Ma  douleur  fut  bien  amere  ! 

Fut  bien  amere  ! ' 
— '  Dieu  vous  benira,  grand'mere  ; 
Dieu  vous  benira.' " 

This  is  a  great  exception  to  the  transitoriness  of  political 
poetry.  Such  a  character  as  that  of  Napoleon  displayed  on 
so  large  a  stage,  so  great  a  genius  amid  such  scenery  of 


tieranger.  77 

action,  insures  an  immortality.  "  The  page  of  universal 
history "  which  he  was  always  coveting,  he  has  attained  ; 
and  it  is  a  page  which,  from  its  singularity  and  its  errors,  its 
shame  and  its  glory,  will  distract  the  attention  from  other 
pages.  No  one  who  has  ever  had  in  his  mind  the  idea  of 
Napoleon's  character  can  forget  it.  Nothing  too  can  be  more 
natural  than  that  the  French  should  remember  it.  His 
character  possessed  the  primary  imagination,  the  elementary 
conceiving  power,  in  which  they  are  deficient.  So  far  from 
being  restricted  to  the  poetry  of  society,  he  would  not  have 
even  appreciated  it.  A  certain  bareness  marks  his  mind;  his 
style  is  curt ;  the  imaginative  product  is  left  rude  ;  there  is 
the  distinct  abstraction  of  the  military  diagram.  The  tact 
of  light  and  passing  talk,  the  detective  imagination  which  is 
akin  to  that  tact,  and  discovers  the  quick  essence  of  social 
things, — he  never  had.  In  speaking  of  his  power  over 
popular  fancies,  Beranger  has  called  him  "  the  greatest  poet 
of  modern  times  ".  No  genius  can  be  more  unlike  his  own, 
and  therefore  perhaps  it  is  that  he  admires  it  so  much. 
During  the  Hundred  Days,  Beranger  says  he  was  never 
under  the  delusion,  then  not  rare,  that  the  Emperor  could 
become  a  constitutional  monarch.  The  lion,  he  felt,  would 
not  change  his  skin.  After  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  he 
says,  doubtless  with  truth,  that  his  "instinct  du  peuple''  told 
him  they  could  never  ally  themselves  with  liberal  principles, 
or  unite  with  that  new  order  of  society  which,  though  dating 
from  the  Revolution,  had  acquired  in  five  and  twenty  years  a 
half-prescriptive  right.  They  and  their  followers  came  in  to 
take  possession,  and  it  was  impossible  they  could  unite  with 
what  was  in  possession.  During  the  whole  reign  of  the 
hereditary  Bourbon  dynasty,  Beranger  was  in  opposition. 
Representing  the  natural  sentiments  of  the  new  Frenchman, 
he  could  not  bear  the  natural  tendency  of  the  ruling  power 
to  the  half-forgotten  practices  of  old  France.  The  legitimate 


78  Literary  Studies. 


Bourbons  were  by  their  position  the  chieftains  of  the  party 
advocating  their  right  by  birth  ;  they  could  not  be  the  kings 
of  a  people  ;  and  the  poet  of  the  people  was  against  them. 
After  the  genius  of  Napoleon,  all  other  governing  minds 
would  seem  tame  and  contracted ;  and  Charles  X.  was  not  a 
man  to  diminish  the  inevitable  feeling.  Beranger  despised 
him.  As  the  poet  warred  with  the  weapons  of  poetry,  the 
Government  retorted  with  the  penalties  of  State.  He  was 
turned  out  of  his  petty  clerkship,  he  was  twice  imprisoned  ; 
but  these  things  only  increased  his  popularity  ;  and  a  firm 
and  genial  mind,  so  far  from  being  moved,  sang  songs  at 
La  Force  itself.  The  Revolution  of  1830  was  willing  to 
make  his  fortune. 

"  Je  1'ai  traitee,"  he  says,  "  comme  une  puissance  qui  peut  avoir  des 
caprices  auxquels  il  faut  etre  en  mesure  de  resister.  Tous  ou  presque 
tous  mes  amis  ont  passe  au  ministere :  j'en  ai  meme  encore  un  ou  deux 
qui  restent  suspendus  a  ce  mat  de  cocagne.  Je  me  plais  a  croire  qu'ils 
y  sont  accroches  par  la  basque,  malgre  les  efforts  qu'ils  font  pour  des- 
cendre.  J'aurais  done  pu  avoir  part  a  la  distribution  des  emplois. 
Malheureusement  je  n'ai  pas  1'amour  des  sinecures,  et  tout  travail 
oblige  m'est  devenu  insupportable,  hors  peut-etre  encore  celui  d'ex- 
peditionnaire.  Des  medisants  ont  pretendu  que  je  faisais  de  la  vertu. 
Fi  done !  je  faisais  de  la  paresse.  Ce  defaut  m'a  tenu  lieu  de  bien  des 
qualites ;  aussi  je  le  recommande  a  beaucoup  de  nos  honnetes  gens. 
II  expose  pourtant  a  de  singuliers  reproches.  C'est  a  cette  paresse  si 
douce,  que  des  censeurs  rigides  ont  attribue  1'eloignement  ou  je  me 
suis  tenu  de  ceux  de  mes  honorables  amis  qui  ont  eu  le  malheur  d'ar- 
river  au  pouvoir.  Faisant  trop  d'honneur  a  ce  qu'ils  veulent  bien  appeler 
ma  bonne  tete,  et  oubliant  trop  combien  il  y  a  loin  du  simple  bon  sens  a 
la  science  des  grandes  affaires,  ces  censeurs  pretendent  que  mes  conseils 
eussent  eclaire  plus  d'un  ministre.  A  les  croire,  tapi  derriere  le  fauteuil 
de  velours  de  nos  hommes  d'etat,  j'aurais  conjure  les  vents,  dissipe  les 
orages,  et  fait  nager  la  France  dans  un  ocean  de  delices.  Nous  aurions 
tous  de  la  liberte  a  revendre  ou  plutot  a  donner,  car  nous  n'en  savons  pas 
bien  encore  le  prix.  Eh  !  messieurs  mes  deux  ou  trois  amis,  qui  prenez 
un  chansonnier  pour  un  magicien,  on  ne  vous  a  done  pas  dit  que  le 
pouvoir  est  une  cloche  qui  empeche  ceux  qui  la  mettent  en  branle 


Bemnger.  79 


d'entendre  aucun  autre  son  ?  Sans  doute  des  ministres  consultent  quel- 
quefois  ceux  qu'ils  ont  sous  la  main  :  consulter  est  un  moyen  de  parler  de 
soi  qu'on  neglige  rarement.  Mais  il  ne  suffirait  pas  de  consulter  de  bonne 
foi  des  gens  qui  conseilleraient  de  meme.  II  faudrait  encore  executer : 
ceci  est  la  part  du  caractere.  Les  intentions  les  plus  pures,  le  patriotisme 
le  plus  eclaire  ne  le  donnent  pas  toujours.  Qui  n'a  vu  de  hauts  person- 
nages  quitter  un  donneur  d'avis  avec  une  pensee  courageuse,  et,  1'instant 
d'apres,  revenir  vers  lui,  de  je  ne  sais  quel  lieu  de  fascination,  avec 
1'embarras  d'un  dementi  donne  aux  resolutions  les  plus  sages  ?  '  Oh  ! ' 
disent-ils,  'nous  n'y  serons  plus  repris!  quelle  galere  ! '  Le  plus  honteux 
ajoute:  'Je  voudrais  bien  vous  voir  a  ma  place!'  Quand  un  ministre 
dit  cela,  soyez  sur  qu'il  n'a  plus  la  tete  a  lui.  Cependant  il  en  est  un, 
mais  un  seul,  qui,  sans  avoir  perdu  la  tete  a  repete  souvent  ce  mot  de  la 
meilleure  foi  du  monde ;  aussi  ne  l'addressait-il  jamais  a  un  ami."  1 

The  statesman  alluded  to  in  the  last  paragraph  is 
Manuel,  his  intimate  friend,  from  whom  he  declares  he  could 
never  have  been  separated,  but  whose  death  prevented  his 
obtaining  political  honours.  Nobody  can  read  the  above 
passage  without  feeling  its  tone  of  political  sense.  An 
enthusiasm  for,  yet  half  distrust  of,  the  Revolution  of  July 
seems  as  sound  a  sentiment  as  could  be  looked  for  even  in 
the  most  sensible  contemporary.  What  he  has  thought  of 
the  present  dynasty  we  do  not  know.  He  probably  has  as 
little  concurred  in  the  silly  encomiums  of  its  mere  partisans 
as  in  the  wild  execrations  of  its  disappointed  enemies.  His 
opinion  could  not  have  been  either  that  of  the  English  who 
feted  Louis  Napoleon  in  1855,  or  of  those  who  despised  him 
in  1851.  The  political  fortunes  of  France  during  the  last 
ten  years  must  have  been  a  painful  scene  of  observation  to 
one  who  remembered  the  taking  of  the  Bastille.  If  there  be 
such  a  thing  as  failure  in  the  world,  this  looks  like  it. 

Although  we  are  very  far  from  thinking  that  Beranger's 
claims  on  posterity  are  founded  on  his  having  utilised  his 
talent  in  favour  of  liberty,  it  is  very  natural  that  he  should 

1  Preface  to  Chansons, 


8o  Literary  Studies. 


think  or  half-think  himself  that  it  is  so.  His  power  over 
the  multitude  must  have  given  him  great  pleasure;  it  is 
something  to  be  able  to  write  mottoes  for  a  revolution  ;  to 
write  words  for  people  to  use,  and  hear  people  use  those 
words.  The  same  sort  of  pleasure  which  Horace  derived 
from  his  nearness  to  the  centre  of  great  action,  Beranger 
has  derived  from  the  power  which  his  thorough  sympathy 
with  his  countrymen  has  given  him  over  them.  A  political 
satire  may  be  ephemeral  from  the  rapid  oblivion  of  its 
circumstances ;  but  it  is  not  unnatural  that  the  author,  in- 
evitably proud  of  its  effect,  may  consider  it  of  higher  worth 
than  mere  verses  of  society. 

This  shrewd  sense  gives  a  solidity  to  the  verses  of 
Beranger  which  the  social  and  amusing  sort  of  poetry 
commonly  wants ;  but  nothing  can  redeem  it  from  the 
reproach  of  wanting  "  back  thought  "-1  This  is  inevitable  in 
such  literature  ;  as  it  professes  to  delineate  for  us  the  light 
essence  of  a  fugitive  world,  it  cannot  be  expected  to  dwell 
on  those  deep  and  eternal  principles  on  which  that  world  is 
based.  It  ignores  them  as  light  talk  ignores  them.  The 
most  opposite  thing  to  the  poetry  of  society  is  the  poetry  of 
inspiration.  There  exists,  of  course,  a  kind  of  imagination 
which  detects  the  secrets  of  the  universe— which  fills  us 
sometimes  with  dread,  sometimes  with  hope — which  awakens 
the  soul,  which  makes  pure  the  feelings,  which  explains 
Nature,  reveals  what  is  above  Nature,  chastens  "  the  deep 
heart  of  man  ".2  Our  senses  teach  us  what  the  world  is ; 
our  intuitions  where  it  is.  We  see  the  blue  and  gold  of  the 
world,  its  lively  amusements,  its  gorgeous  if  superficial 
splendour,  its  currents  of  men  ;  we  feel  its  light  spirits,  we 
enjoy  its  happiness  ;  we  enjoy  it,  and  we  are  puzzled.  What 
is  the  object  of  all  this  ?  Why  do  we  do  all  this  ?  What 
is  the  universe  for?  Such  a  book  as  Beranger's  suggests 

1  Derwent  Coleridge  on  Hartley.  2  Shelley:  "  Alastor". 


Beranger.  81 

this  difficulty  in  its  strongest  form.  It  embodies  the  essence 
of  all  that  pleasure-loving,  pleasure-giving,  unaccountable 
world  in  which  men  spend  their  lives, — which  they  are 
compelled  to  live  in,  but  which  the  moment  you  get  out  of 
it  seems  so  odd  that  you  can  hardly  believe  it  is  real.  On 
this  account,  as  we  were  saying  before,  there  is  no  book  the 
impression  of  which  varies  so  much  in  different  moods  of 
mind.  Sometimes  no  reading  is  so  pleasant ;  at  others  you 
half-despise  and  half-hate  the  idea  of  it ;  it  seems  to  sum  up 
and  make  clear  the  littleness  of  your  own  nature.  Few  can 
bear  the  theory  of  their  amusements ;  it  is  essential  to  the 
pride  of  man  to  believe  that  he  is  industrious.  We  are 
irritated  at  literary  laughter,  and  wroth  at  printed  mirth. 
We  turn  angrily  away  to  that  higher  poetry  which  gives  the 
outline  within  which  all  these  light  colours  are  painted. 
From  the  capital  of  levity,  and  its  self-amusing  crowds  ; 
from  the  elastic  vaudeville  and  the  grinning  actors;  from 
chansons  and  cafes  we  turn  away  to  the  solemn  in  Nature, 
to  the  blue  over-arching  sky :  the  one  remains,  the  many 
pass  ;  no  number  of  seasons  impairs  the  bloom  of  those 
hues,  they  are  as  soft  to-morrow  as  to-day.  The  im- 
measurable depth  folds  us  in.  "Eternity,"  as  the  original 
thinker  said,  "  is  everlasting."  We  breathe  a  deep  breath. 
And  perhaps  we  have  higher  moments.  We  comprehend 
the  "unintelligible  world";1  we  see  into  "the  life  of 
things  " ; 2  we  fancy  we  know  whence  we  come  and  whither 
we  go ;  words  we  have  repeated  for  years  have  a  meaning 
for  the  first  time ;  texts  of  old  Scripture  seem  to  apply  to 
us.  .  .  .  And — and — Mr.  Thackeray  would  say,  You  come 
back  into  the  town,  and  order  dinner  at  a  restaurant,  and 
read  Beranger  once  more. 

And  though  this  is  true — though  the  author  of  "  Le  Dieu 
des  Bonnes  Gens"   has   certainly  no  claim  to  be  called  a 

1  Wordsworth :   "  Tintern  Abbey  ".  2  Ibid. 

VOL.   II.  6 


82  Literary  Studies. 


profound  divine — though  we  do  not  find  in  him  any  proper 
expression,  scarcely  any  momentary  recognition,  of  those 
intuitions  which  explain  in  a  measure  the  scheme  and  idea 
of  things,  and  form  the  back  thought  and  inner  structure 
of  such  minds  as  ours, — his  sense  and  sympathy  with  the 
people  enable  him,  perhaps  compel  him,  to  delineate  those 
essential  conditions  which  constitute  the  structure  of  exterior 
life,  and  determine  with  inevitable  certainty  the  common 
life  of  common  persons.  He  has  no  call  to  deal  with  heaven 
or  the  universe,  but  he  knows  the  earth ;  he  is  restricted  to 
the  boundaries  of  time,  but  he  understands  time.  He  has 
extended  his  delineations  beyond  what  in  this  country  would 
be  considered  correct ;  "  Les  Cinq  Etages  "  can  scarcely  be 
quoted  here;  but  a  perhaps  higher  example  of  the  same 
kind  of  art  may  be  so  : — 

"Le  Vieux  Vagabond. 

"  Dans  ce  fosse  cessons  de  vivre ; 

Je  finis  vieux,  infirme  et  las ; 

Les  passants  vont  dire :  '  II  est  ivre '. 

Tant  mieux !  ils  ne  me  plaindront  pas. 

J'en  vois  qui  detournent  la  tete; 

D'autres  me  jettent  quelques  sous. 

Courez  vite,  allez  a  la  fete : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  puis  mourir  sans  vous. 

"  Oui,  je  meurs  ici  de  vieillesse, 

Parce  qu'on  ne  meurt  pas  de  faim. 

J'esperais  voir  de  ma  detresse 

L'hopital  adoucir  la  fin  ; 

Mais  tout  est  plein  dans  chaque  hospice, 

Tant  le  peuple  est  infortune. 

La  rue,  helas !  fut  ma  nourrice : 
Vieux  vagabond,  mourons  ou  je  suis  ne. 

"  Aux  artisans,  dans  mon  jeune  age, 
J'ai  dit:  'Qu'on  m'enseigne  un  metier'. 
'  Va,  nous  n'avons  pas  trop  d'ouvrage,' 
Repondaient-ils,  '  va  mendier '. 


Beranger.  83 

Riches,  qui  me  disiez :  '  Travaille,' 
J'eus  bien  des  os  de  vos  repas  ; 
J'ai  bien  dormi  sur  votre  paille: 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  ne  vous  maudis  pas. 

"  J'aurais  pu  voler,  moi,  pauvre  homme  ; 

Mais  non  :  mieux  vaut  tendre  la  main. 

Au  plus,  j'ai  derobe  la  pomme 

Qui  murit  au  bord  du  chemin. 

Vingt  fois  pourtant  on  me  verrouille 

Dans  les  cachots,  de  par  le  roi. 

De  mon  seul  bien  on  me  depouille : 
Vieux  vagabond,  le  soleil  est  a  moi. 

"  Le  pauvre  a-t-il  une  patrie  ? 

Que  me  font  vos  vins  et  vos  He's, 

Votre  gloire  et  votre  Industrie, 

Et  vos  orateurs  assembles  ? 

Dans  vos  murs  ouverts  a  ses  armes 

Lorsque  1'etranger  s'engraissait, 

Comme  un  sot  j'ai  verse  des  larmes : 
Vieux  vagabond,  sa  main  me  nourrissait. 

"  Comme  un  insecte  fait  pour  nuire, 

Hommes,  que  ne  m'ecrasiez-vous  1 

Ah  !  plutot  vous  deviez  m'instruire 

A  travailler  au  bien  de  tous. 

Mis  a  1'abri  du  vent  contraire, 

Le  ver  fut  devenu  fourmi ; 

Je  vous  aurais  cheris  en  frere : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  meurs  votre  ennemi.'r 

Pathos  in  such  a  song  as  this  enters  into  poetry.  We 
sympathise  with  the  essential  lot  of  man.  Poems  of  this 
kind  are  doubtless  rare  in  Beranger.  His  commoner  style 
is  lighter  and  more  cheerful ;  but  no  poet  who  has  painted 
so  well  the  light  effervescence  of  light  society  can,  when 
he  likes,  paint  so  well  the  solid,  stubborn  forms  with  which 
it  is  encompassed.  The  genial,  firm  sense  of  a  large  mind 
sees  and  comprehends  all  of  human  life  which  lies  within 


84  Literary  Studies. 


the  sphere  of  sense.  He  is  an  epicurean,  as  all  merely 
sensible  men  by  inevitable  consequence  are ;  and  as  an 
epicurean,  he  prefers  to  deal  with  the  superficial  and  gay 
forms  of  life  ;  but  he  can  deal  with  others  when  he  chooses 
to  be  serious.  Indeed,  there  is  no  melancholy  like  the 
melancholy  of  the  epicurean.  He  is  alive  to  the  fixed  con- 
ditions of  earth,  but  not  to  that  which  is  above  earth.  He 
muses  on  the  temporary,  as  such  ;  he  admits  the  skeleton, 
but  not  the  soul.  It  is  wonderful  that  Beranger  is  so 
cheerful  as  he  is. 

We  may  conclude  as  we  began.  In  all  his  works,  in 
lyrics  of  levity,  of  politics,  of  worldly  reflection, — Beranger, 
if  he  had  not  a  single  object,  has  attained  a  uniform  result. 
He  has  given  us  an  idea  of  the  essential  French  character, 
such  as  we  fancy  it  must  be,  but  can  never  for  ourselves 
hope  to  see  that  it  is.  We  understand  the  nice  tact,  the 
quick  intelligence,  the  gay  precision ;  the  essence  of  the 
drama  we  know — the  spirit  of  what  we  have  seen.  We 
know  his  feeling  : — 

"  J'aime  qu'un  Russe  soit  Russe, 
Et  qu'un  Anglais  soit  Anglais ; 
Si  Ton  est  Prussian  en  Prusse, 
En  France  soyons  Fran£ais  "-1 

He  has  acted  accordingly :  he  has  delineated  to  us  the 
essential  Frenchman. 

1  "  Le  Bon  Fran9ais." 


THE  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.1 

(1858.) 

IT  is  not  commonly  on  the  generation  which  was  contem- 
porary with  the  production  of  great  works  of  art  that  they 
exercise  their  most  magical  influence.  Nor  is  it  on  the 
distant  people  whom  we  call  posterity.  Contemporaries 
bring  to  new  books  formed  minds  and  stiffened  creeds  ; 
posterity,  if  it  regard  them  at  all,  looks  at  them  as  old 
subjects,  worn-out  topics,  and  hears  a  disputation  on  their 
merits  with  languid  impartiality,  like  aged  judges  in  a 
court  of  appeal.  Even  standard  authors  exercise  but 
slender  influence  on  the  susceptible  minds  of  a  rising 
generation  ;  they  are  become  "  papa's  books " ;  the  walls 
of  the  library  are  adorned  with  their  regular  volumes ;  but 
no  hand  touches  them.  Their  fame  is  itself  half  an  obstacle 
to  their  popularity ;  a  delicate  fancy  shrinks  from  employ- 
ing so  great  a  celebrity  as  the  companion  of  an  idle  hour. 
The  generation  which  is  really  most  influenced  by  a  work 

1  Library  Edition.  Illustrated  by  upwards  of  Two  Hundred  Engrav- 
ings on  Steel,  after  Drawings  by  Turner,  Landseer,  Wilkie,  Stanfield, 
Roberts,  etc.,  including  Portraits  of  the  Historical  Personages  described 
in  the  Novels.  25  vols.  demy  8vo. 

Abbotsford  Edition.  With  One  Hundred  and  Twenty  Engravings  on 
Steel,  and  nearly  Two  Thousand  on  Wood.  2  vols.  super-royal  8vo. 

Author'1  s  favourite  Edition.    48  vols.  post  8vo. 

Cabinet  Edition.    25  vols.  foolscap  8vo. 

Railway  Edition.  Now  publishing,  and  to  be  completed  in  25  port- 
able volumes,  large  type. 

People's  Edition.    $  large  volumes  royal  8vo. 


86  Literary  Studies. 


of  genius  is  commonly  that  which  is  still  young  when  the 
first  controversy  respecting  its  merits  arises ;  with  the 
eagerness  of  youth  they  read  and  re-read  ;  their  vanity  is 
not  unwilling  to  adjudicate :  in  the  process  their  imagina- 
tion is  formed  ;  the  creations  of  the  author  range  themselves 
in  the  memory  ;  they  become  part  of  the  substance  of  the 
very  mind.  The  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  gone  through  this  exact  process.  Their 
immediate  popularity  was  unbounded.  No  one — a  few 
most  captious  critics  apart — ever  questioned  their  peculiar 
power.  Still  they  are  subject  to  a  transition,  which  is  in 
principle  the  same.  At  the  time  of  their  publication  mature 
contemporaries  read  them  with  delight.  Superficial  the 
reading  of  grown  men  in  some  sort  must  be ;  it  is  only  once 
in  a  lifetime  that  we  can  know  the  passionate  reading  of 
youth ;  men  soon  lose  its  eager  learning  power.  But  from 
peculiarities  in  their  structure,  which  we  shall  try  to  indi- 
cate, the  novels  of  Scott  suffered  less  than  almost  any  book 
of  equal  excellence  from  this  inevitable  superficiality  of 
perusal.  Their  plain,  and,  so  to  say,  cheerful  merits  suit 
the  occupied  man  of  genial  middle  life.  Their  appreciation 
was  to  an  unusual  degree  coincident  with  their  popularity. 
The  next  generation,  hearing  the  praises  of  their  fathers 
in  their  earliest  reading  time,  seized  with  avidity  on  the 
volumes ;  and  there  is  much  in  very  many  of  them  which  is 
admirably  fitted  for  the  delight  of  boyhood.  A  third  genera- 
tion has  now  risen  into  at  least  the  commencement  of 
literary  life,  which  is  quite  removed  from  the  unbounded 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  Scotch  novels  were  originally 
received,  and  does  not  always  share  the  still  more  eager 
partiality  of  those  who,  in  the  opening  of  their  minds,  first 
received  the  tradition  of  their  excellence.  New  books  have 
arisen  to  compete  with  these ;  new  interests  distract  us 
from  them.  The  time,  therefore,  is  not  perhaps  unfavour- 


The  Waver  ley  Novels. 


able  for  a  slight  criticism  of  these  celebrated  fictions ;  and 
their  continual  republication  without  any  criticism  for  many 
years,  seems  almost  to  demand  it. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  fiction  which,  though  in  common 
literature  they  may  run  very  much  into  one  another,  are 
yet  in  reality  distinguishable  and  separate.  One  of  these, 
which  we  may  call  the  ubiquitous,  aims  at  describing  the 
whole  of  human  life  in  all  its  spheres,  in  all  its  aspects, 
with  all  its  varied  interests,  aims,  and  objects.  It  searches 
through  the  whole  life  of  man ;  his  practical  pursuits,  his 
speculative  attempts,  his  romantic  youth,  and  his  domestic 
age.  It  gives  an  entire  picture  of  all  these  ;  or  if  there  be 
any  lineaments  which  it  forbears  to  depict,  they  are  only 
such  as  the  inevitable  repression  of  a  regulated  society  ex- 
cludes from  the  admitted  province  of  literary  art.  Of  this 
kind  are  the  novels  of  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage,  and,  to  a 
certain  extent,  of  Smollett  or  Fielding.  In  our  own  time, 
Mr.  Dickens  is  an  author  whom  Nature  intended  to  write 
to  a  certain  extent  with  this  aim.  He  should  have  given 
us  not  disjointed  novels,  with  a  vague  attempt  at  a  romantic 
plot,  but  sketches  of  diversified  scenes,  and  the  obvious  life 
of  varied  mankind.  The  literary  fates,  however,  if  such 
beings  there  are,  allotted  otherwise.  By  a  very  terrible 
example  of  the  way  in  which  in  this  world  great  interests 
are  postponed  to  little  ones,  the  genius  of  authors  is 
habitually  sacrificed  to  the  tastes  of  readers.  In  this  age, 
the  great  readers  of  fiction  are  young  people.  The  "  addic- 
tion "  of  these  is  to  romance  ;  and  accordingly  a  kind  of 
novel  has  become  so  familiar  to  us  as  almost  to  engross  the 
name,  which  deals  solely  with  the  passion  of  love ;  and  if  it 
uses  other  parts  of  human  life  for  the  occasions  of  its  art, 
it  does  so  only  cursorily  and  occasionally,  and  with  a  view 
of  throwing  into  a  stronger  or  more  delicate  light  those 
sentimental  parts  of  earthly  affairs  which  are  the  special 


Literary  Studies. 


objects  of  delineation.  All  prolonged  delineation  of  other 
parts  of  human  life  is  considered  "dry,"  stupid,  and  distracts 
the  mind  of  the  youthful  generation  from  the  "fantasies" 
which  peculiarly  charm  it.  Mr.  Olmstead  has  a  story  of 
some  deputation  of  the  Indians,  at  which  the  American 
orator  harangued  the  barbarian  audience  about  the  "  great 
spirit,"  and  "  the  land  of  their  fathers,"  in  the  style  of  Mr. 
Cooper's  novels ;  during  a  moment's  pause  in  the  great 
stream,  an  old  Indian  asked  the  deputation  :  "  Why  does 
your  chief  speak  thus  to  us  ?  We  did  not  wish  great 
instruction  or  fine  words  ;  we  desire  brandy  and  tobacco." 
No  critic  in  a  time  of  competition  will  speak  uncourteously 
of  any  reader  of  either  sex ;  but  it  is  indisputable  that  the 
old  kind  of  novel,  full  of  "  great  instruction "  and  varied 
pictures,  does  not  afford  to  some  young  gentlemen  and 
some  young  ladies  either  the  peculiar  stimulus  or  the 
peculiar  solace  which  they  desire. 

The  Waverley  Novels  were  published  at  a  time  when  the 
causes  that  thus  limit  the  sphere  of  fiction  were  coming  into 
operation,  but  when  they  had  not  yet  become  so  omnipotent 
as  they  are  now.  Accordingly,  these  novels  everywhere  bear 
marks  of  a  state  of  transition.  They  are  not  devoted  with 
anything  like  the  present  exclusiveness  to  the  sen'timental 
part  of  human  life.  They  describe  great  events,  singular 
characters,  strange  accidents,  strange  states  of  society ;  they 
dwell  with  a  peculiar  interest — and  as  if  for  their  own  sake — 
on  antiquarian  details  relating  to  a  past  society.  Singular 
customs,  social  practices,  even  political  institutions  which 
existed  once  in  Scotland,  and  elsewhere,  during  the 
middle  ages,  are  explained  with  a  careful  minuteness.  At 
the  same  time  the  sentimental  element  assumes  a  great  deal 
of  prominence.  The  book  is  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  theory,  a 
narrative  of  the  feelings  and  fortunes  of  the  hero  and  heroine. 
An  attempt  more  or  less  successful  has  been  made  to  insert 


The  Waverley  Novels.  89 

an  interesting  love-story  in  each  novel.  Sir  Walter  was 
quite  aware  that  the  best  delineation  of  the  oddest  characters, 
or  the  most  quaint  societies,  or  the  strangest  incidents, 
would  not  in  general  satisfy  his  readers.  He  has  invariably 
attempted  an  account  of  youthful,  sometimes  of  decidedly 
juvenile,  feelings  and  actions.  The  difference  between  Sir 
Walter's  novels  and  the  specially  romantic  fictions  of  the 
present  day  is,  that  in  the  former  the  love-story  is  always, 
or  nearly  always,  connected  with  some  great  event,  or  the 
fortunes  of  some  great  historical  character,  or  the  peculiar 
movements  and  incidents  of  some  strange  state  of  society  ; 
and  that  the  author  did  not  suppose  or  expect  that  his 
readers  would  be  so  absorbed  in  the  sentimental  aspect  of 
human  life  as  to  be  unable  or  unwilling  to  be  interested  in, 
or  to  attend  to,  any  other.  There  is  always  a  locus  in  quo, 
if  the  expression  may  be  pardoned,  in  the  Waverley  Novels. 
The  hero  and  heroine  walk  among  the  trees  of  the  forest 
according  to  rule,  but  we  are  expected  to  take  an  interest  in 
the  forest  as  well  as  in  them. 

No  novel,  therefore,  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  can  be  con- 
sidered to  come  exactly  within  the  class  which  we  have 
called  the  ubiquitous.  None  of  them  in  any  material  degree 
attempts  to  deal  with  human  affairs  in  all  their  spheres — to 
delineate  as  a  whole  the  life  of  man.  The  canvas  has  a 
large  background,  in  some  cases  too  large  either  for  artistic 
effect  or  the  common  reader's  interest ;  but  there  are  always 
real  boundaries — Sir  Walter  had  no  thesis  to  maintain. 
Scarcely  any  writer  will  set  himself  to  delineate  the  whole 
of  human  life,  unless  he  has  a  doctrine  concerning  human 
life  to  put  forth  and  inculcate.  The  effort  is  doctrinaire. 
Scott's  imagination  was  strictly  conservative.  He  could 
understand  (with  a  few  exceptions)  any  considerable  move- 
ment of  human  life  and  action,  and  could  always  describe 
with  easy  freshness  everything  which  he  did  understand  ; 


go  Literary  Studies. 


but  he  was  not  obliged  by  stress  of  fanaticism  to  maintain  a 
dogma  concerning  them,  or  to  show  their  peculiar  relation 
to  the  general  sphere  of  life.  He  described  vigorously  and 
boldly  the  peculiar  scene  and  society  which  in  every  novel 
he  had  selected  as  the  theatre  of  romantic  action.  Partly 
from  their  fidelity  to  nature,  and  partly  from  a  consistency 
in  the  artist's  mode  of  representation,  these  pictures  group 
themselves  from  the  several  novels  in  the  imagination,  and 
an  habitual  reader  comes  to  think  of  and  understand  what  is 
meant  by  "  Scott's  world " ;  but  the  writer  had  no  much 
distinct  object  before  him.  No  one  novel  was  designed  to 
be  a  delineation  of  the  world  as  Scott  viewed  it.  We  have 
vivid  and  fragmentary  histories ;  it  is  for  the  slow  critic  of 
after-times  to  piece  together  their  teaching. 

From  this  intermediate  position  of  the  Waverley  Novels, 
or  at  any  rate  in  exact  accordance  with  its  requirements,  is 
the  special  characteristic  for  which  they  are  most  remark- 
able. We  may  call  this  in  a  brief  phrase  their  romantic 
sense ;  and  perhaps  we  cannot  better  illustrate  it  than  by  a 
quotation  from  the  novel  to  which  the  series  owes  its  most 
usual  name.  It  occurs  in  the  description  of  the  Court  ball 
which  Charles  Edward  is  described  as  giving  at  Holyrood 
House  the  night  before  his  march  southward  on  his  strange 
adventure.  The  striking  interest  of  the  scene  before  him, 
and  the  peculiar  position  of  his  own  sentimental  career,  are 
described  as  influencing  the  mind  of  the  hero. 

"  Under  the  influence  of  these  mixed  sensations,  and  cheered  at 
times  by  a  smile  of  intelligence  and  approbation  from  the  Prince  as 
he  passed  the  group,  Waverley  exerted  his  powers  of  fancy,  animation, 
and  eloquence,  and  attracted  the  general  admiration  of  the  company. 
The  conversation  gradually  assumed  the  line  best  qualified  for  the  display 
of  his  talents  and  acquisitions.  The  gaiety  of  the  evening  was  exalted  in 
character,  rather  than  checked,  by  the  approaching  dangers  of  the 
morrow.  All  nerves  were  strung  for  the  future,  and  prepared  to  enjoy 
the  present.  This  mood  is  highly  favourable  for  the  exercise  of  the 


The  Waverley  Novels.  91 

powers  of  imagination,  for  poetry,  and  for  that  eloquence  which  is  allied 
to  poetry."  a 

Neither  "eloquence"  nor  "  poetry"  are  the  exact  words 
with  which  it  would  be  appropriate  to  describe  the  fresh 
style  of  the  Waverley  Novels ;  but  the  imagination  of  their 
author  was  stimulated  by  a  fancied  mixture  of  sentiment 
and  fact,  very  much  as  he  describes  Waverley's  to  have 
been  by  a  real  experience  of  the  two  at  once.  The  second 
volume  of  Waverley  is  one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations 
of  this  peculiarity.  The  character  of  Charles  Edward,  his 
adventurous  undertaking,  his  ancestral  rights,  the  mixed 
selfishness  and  enthusiasm  of  the  Highland  chiefs,  the 
fidelity  of  their  hereditary  followers,  their  striking  and 
strange  array,  the  contrast  with  the  Baron  of  Bradwardine 
and  the  Lowland  gentry  ;  the  collision  of  the  motley  and 
half-appointed  host  with  the  formed  and  finished  English 
society,  its  passage  by  the  Cumberland  mountains  and  the 
blue  lake  of  Ullswater — are  unceasingly  and  without  effort 
present  to  the  mind  of  the  writer,  and  incite  with  their 
historical  interest  the  susceptibility  of  his  imagination.  But 
at  the  same  time  the  mental  struggle,  or  rather  transition, 
in  the  mind  of  Waverley — for  his  mind  was  of  the  faint 
order  which  scarcely  struggles — is  never  for  an  instant  lost 
sight  of.  In  the  very  midst  of  the  inroad  and  the  conflict, 
the  acquiescent  placidity  with  which  the  hero  exchanges 
the  service  of  the  imperious  for  the  appreciation  of  the 
"  nice  "  heroine,  is  kept  before  us,  and  the  imagination  of 
Scott  wandered  without  effort  from  the  great  scene  of 
martial  affairs  to  the  natural  but  rather  unheroic  sentiments 
of  a  young  gentleman  not  very  difficult  to  please.  There  is 
no  trace  of  effort  in  the  transition,  as  is  so  common  in  the 
inferior  works  of  later  copyists.  Many  historical  novelists, 

1  Chap,  xliii. 


Q2  Literary  Studies. 


especially  those  who  with  care  and  pains  have  "read  up" 
their  detail,  are  often  evidently  in  a  strait  how  to  pass  from 
their  history  to  their  sentiment.  The  fancy  of  Sir  Walter 
could  not  help  connecting  the  two.  If  he  had  given  us  the 
English  side  of  the  race  to  Derby,  he  would  have  described 
the  Bank  of  England  paying  in  sixpences,  and  also  the 
loves  of  the  cashier. 

It  is  not  unremarkable  in  connection  with  this,  the 
special  characteristic  of  the  "  Scotch  novels,"  that  their 
author  began  his  literary  life  by  collecting  the  old  ballads 
of  his  native  country.  Ballad  poetry  is,  in  comparison  at 
least  with  many  other  kinds  of  poetry,  a  sensible  thing.  It 
describes  not  only  romantic  events,  but  historical  ones, 
incidents  in  which  there  is  a  form  and  body  and  consistence 
— events  which  have  a  result.  Such  a  poem  as  "  Chevy 
Chace,"  we  need  not  explain,  has  its  prosaic  side.  The 
latest  historian  of  Greece l  has  nowhere  been  more  successful 
than  in  his  attempt  to  derive  from  Homer,  the  greatest  of 
ballad  poets,  a  thorough  and  consistent  account  of  the 
political  working  of  the  Homeric  state  of  society.  The 
early  natural  imagination  of  men  seizes  firmly  on  all  which 
interests  the  minds  and  hearts  of  natural  men.  We  find 
in  its  delineations  the  council  as  well  as  the  marriage ;  the 
harsh  conflict  as  well  as  the  deep  love-affair.  Scott's  own 
poetry  is  essentially  a  modernised  edition  of  the  traditional 
poems  which  his  early  youth  was  occupied  in  collecting. 
The  "  Lady  of  the  Lake "  is  a  sort  of  boudoir  ballad,  yet 
it  contains  its  element  of  common-sense  and  broad  delinea- 
tion. The  exact  position  of  Lowlander  and  Highlander 
would  not  be  more  aptly  described  in  a  set  treatise  than 
in  the  well-known  lines  : — 

"  Saxon,  from  yonder  mountain  high 
I  marked  thee  send  delighted  eye 

1  Grote, 


The  Waverley  Novels.  93 

Far  to  the  south  and  east,  where  lay, 
Extended  in  succession  gay, 
Deep  waving  fields  and  pastures  green, 
With  gentle  slopes  and  groves  between  : 
These  fertile  plains,  that  softened  vale, 
Were  once  the  birthright  of  the  Gael. 
The  stranger  came  with  iron  hand, 
And  from  our  fathers  reft  the  land. 
Where  dwell  we  now  !  See,  rudely  swell 
Crag  over  crag,  and  fell  o'er  fell. 
Ask  we  this  savage  hill  we  tread, 
For  fattened  steer  or  household  bread  ; 
Ask  we  for  flocks  these  shingles  dry, — 
And  well  the  mountain  might  reply  : 
To  you,  as  to  your  sires  of  yore, 
Belong  the  target  and  claymore  ; 
I  give  you  shelter  in  my  breast, 
Your  own  good  blades  must  win  the  rest. 
Pent  in  this  fortress  of  the  North, 
Think'st  thou  we  will  not  sally  forth 
To  spoil  the  spoiler  as  we  may, 
And  from  the  robber  rend  the  prey  ? 
Ay,  by  my  soul !     While  on  yon  plain 
The  Saxon  rears  one  shock  of  grain  ; 
While  of  ten  thousand  herds  there  strays 
But  one  along  yon  river's  maze  ; 
The  Gael,  of  plain  and  river  heir, 
Shall  with  strong  hand  redeem  his  share." 

We  need  not  search  the  same  poem  for  specimens  of  the 
romantic  element,  for  the  whole  poem  is  full  of  them.  The 
incident  in  which  Ellen  discovers  who  Fitz-James  really  is,  is 
perhaps  excessively  romantic.  At  any  rate  the  lines, — 

"  To  him  each  lady's  look  was  lent ; 
On  him  each  courtier's  eye  was  bent ; 
Midst  furs  and  silks  and  jewels  sheen, 
He  stood  in  simple  Lincoln  green, 
The  centre  of  the  glittering  ring, 
And  Snowdoun's  knight  is  Scotland's  king,"— 


94  Literary  Studies. 


may  be  cited  as  very  sufficient  example  of  the  sort  of  senti- 
mental incident  which  is  separable  from  extreme  feeling. 
When  Scott,  according  to  his  own  half-jesting  but  half-serious 
expression,  was  "  beaten  out  of  poetry  "  by  Byron,  he  began 
to  express  in  more  pliable  prose  the  same  combination  which 
his  verse  had  been  used  to  convey.  As  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, the  sense  became  in  the  novels  more  free,  vigorous, 
and  flowing,  because  it  is  less  cramped  by  the  vehicle  in 
which  it  is  conveyed.  The  range  of  character  which  can  be 
adequately  delineated  in  narrative  verse  is  much  narrower  than 
that  which  can  be  described  in  the  combination  of  narrative 
with  dramatic  prose  ;  and  perhaps  even  the  sentiment  of  the 
novels  is  manlier  and  freer ;  a  delicate  unreality  hovers  over 
the  "  Lady  of  the  Lake  ". 

The  sensible  element,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  of  the 
Waverley  Novels  appears  in  various  forms.  One  of  the  most 
striking  is  in  the  delineation  of  great  political  events  and  in- 
fluential political  institutions.  We  are  not  by  any  means  about 
to  contend  that  Scott  is  to  be  taken  as  an  infallible  or  an  im- 
partial authority  for  the  parts  of  history  which  he  delineates. 
On  the  contrary,  we  believe  all  the  world  now  agrees  that  there 
are  many  deductions  to  be  made  from,  many  exceptions  to  be 
taken  to,  the  accuracy  of  his  delineations.  Still,  whatever 
period  or  incident  we  take,  we  shall  always  find  in  the  error  a 
great,  in  one  or  two  cases  perhaps  an  extreme,  mixture  of  the 
mental  element  which  we  term  common-sense.  The  strongest 
wwsensible  feeling  in  Scott  was  perhaps  his  Jacobitism,  which 
crept  out  even  in  small  incidents  and  recurring  prejudice 
throughout  the  whole  of  his  active  career,  and  was,  so  to 
say,  the  emotional  aspect  of  his  habitual  Toryism.  Yet  no 
one  can  have  given  a  more  sensible  delineation,  we  might  say 
a  more  statesmanlike  analysis,  of  the  various  causes  which 
led  to  the  momentary  success,  and  to  the  speedy  ruin,  ot 
the  enterprise  of  Charles  Edward.1  Mr.  Lockhart  says, 
1  In  Waverley. 


•     The  Waverley  Novels.  95 

that  notwithstanding  Scott's  imaginative  readiness  to  exalt 
Scotland  at  the  expense  of  England,  no  man  would  have 
been  more  willing  to  join  in  emphatic  opposition  to  an 
anti-English  party,  if  any  such  had  presented  itself  with  a 
practical  object.  Similarly  his  Jacobitism,  though  not 
without  moments  of  real  influence,  passed  away  when  his 
mind  was  directed  to  broad  masses  of  fact,  and  general  con- 
clusions of  political  reasoning.  A  similar  observation  may 
be  made  as  to  Scott's  Toryism ;  although  it  is  certain  that 
there  was  an  enthusiastic,  and,  in  the  malicious  sense, 
poetical  element  in  Scott's  Toryism,  yet  quite  as  indisput- 
ably it  partook  largely  of  two  other  elements,  which  are  in 
common  repute  prosaic.  He  shared  abundantly  in  the  love 
of  administration  and  organisation,  common  to  all  men  of 
great  active  powers.  He  liked  to  contemplate  method  at 
work  and  order  in  action.  Everybody  hates  to  hear  that 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  asked  "  how  the  king's  government 
was  to  be  carried  on  ".  No  amount  of  warning  wisdom 
will  bear  so  fearful  a  repetition.  Still  he  did  say  it,  and 
Scott  had  a  sympathising  foresight  of  the  oracle  before  it 
was  spoken.  One  element  of  his  conservatism  is  his 
sympathy  with  the  administrative  arrangement,  which  is 
confused  by  the  objections  of  a  Whiggish  opposition  and  is 
liable  to  be  altogether  destroyed  by  uprisings  of  the  populace. 
His  biographer,  while  pointing  out  the  strong  contrast 
between  Scott  and  the  argumentative  and  parliamentary 
statesmen  of  his  age,  avows  his  opinion  that  in  other  times, 
and  with  sufficient  opportunities,  Scott's  ability  in  manag- 
ing men  would  have  enabled  him  to  "  play  the  part  of  Cecil 
or  of  Gondomar".1  We  may  see  how  much  a  suppressed 
enthusiasm  for  such  abilities  breaks  out,  not  only  in  the 
description  of  hereditary  monarchs,  where  the  sentiment 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  vol.  v.,  chap,  viii.,  in  re  Scott's  manage- 
ment of  the  Highland  pageant  on  George  IV.'s  visit  to  Scotland.  (For- 
rest  Morgan.) 


96  Literary  Studies. 


might  be  ascribed  to  a  different  origin,  but  also  in  the  de- 
lineation of  upstart  rulers,  who  could  have  no  hereditary 
sanctity  in  the  eyes  of  any  Tory.  Roland  Graeme,  in  The 
Abbot,  is  well  described  as  losing  in  the  presence  of  the 
Regent  Murray  the  natural  impertinence  of  his  disposition. 
"  He  might  have  braved  with  indifference  the  presence  of  an 
earl  merely  distinguished  by  his  belt  and  coronet;  but  he 
felt  overawed  in  that  of  the  soldier  and  statesman,  the 
wielder  of  a  nation's  power,  and  the  leader  of  her  armies."  l 
It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the  author  shares  the  feeling  of 
his  hero  by  the  evident  pleasure  with  which  he  dwells  on 
the  regent's  demeanour :  "  He  then  turned  slowly  round 
toward  Roland  Graeme,  and  the  marks  of  gaiety,  real  or 
assumed,  disappeared  from  his  countenance  as  completely 
as  the  passing  bubbles  leave  the  dark  mirror  of  a  still  pro- 
found lake  into  which  the  traveller  has  cast  a  stone  ;  in  the 
course  of  a  minute  his  noble  features  had  assumed  their 
natural  expression  of  melancholy  gravity,"  2  etc.  In  real 
life,  Scott  used  to  say,  that  he  never  remembered  feeling 
abashed  in  any  one's  presence  except  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's. Like  that  of  the  hero  of  his  novel,  his  imagination 
was  very  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  great  achievements 
and  prolonged  success  in  wide-spreading  affairs. 

The  view  which  Scott  seems  to  have  taken  of  democracy 
indicates  exactly  the  same  sort  of  application  of  a  plain 
sense  to  the  visible  parts  of  the  subject.  His  imagination 
was  singularly  penetrated  with  the  strange  varieties  and 
motley  composition  of  human  life.  The  extraordinary 
multitude  and  striking  contrast  of  the  characters  in  his 
novels  show  this  at  once.  And  even  more  strikingly  is  the 
same  habit  of  mind  indicated  "  by  a  tendency  never  to  omit 
an  opportunity  of  describing  those  varied  crowds  and  as- 
semblages "  which  concentrate  for  a  moment  into  a  unity 
1  Chap,  xviii.  2  Ibid 


The  Waverley  Novels.  97 

the  scattered  and  unlike  varieties  of  mankind.  Thus,  but  a 
page  or  two  before  the  passage  which  we  alluded  to  in  The 
Abbot,  we  find  the  following  : — 

"  It  was  indeed  no  common  sight  to  Roland,  the  vestibule  of  a 
palace,  traversed  by  its  various  groups, — some  radiant  with  gaiety — some 
pensive,  and  apparently  weighed  down  by  affairs  concerning  the  State,  or 
concerning  themselves.  Here  the  hoary  statesman,  with  his  cautious  yet 
commanding  look,  his  furred  cloak  and  sable  pantoufles ;  there  the 
soldier  in  buff  and  steel,  his  long  sword  jarring  against  the  pavement,  and 
his  whiskered  upper  lip  and  frowning  brow  looking  an  habitual  defiance 
of  danger,  which  perhaps  was  not  always  made  good  ;  there  again  passed 
my  lord's  serving-man,  high  of  heart  and  bloody  of  hand,  humble  to  his 
master  and  his  master's  equals,  insolent  to  all  others.  To  these  might 
be  added  the  poor  suitor,  with  his  anxious  look  and  depressed  mien — the 
officer,  full  of  his  brief  authority,  elbowing  his  betters,  and  possibly  his 
benefactors,  out  of  the  road — the  proud  priest,  who  sought  a  better 
benefice — the  proud  baron,  who  sought  a  grant  of  Church  lands — the 
robber  chief,  who  came  to  solicit  a  pardon  for  the  injuries  he  had  inflicted 
on  his  neighbours — the  plundered  franklin,  who  came  to  seek  vengeance 
for  that  which  he  had  himself  received.  Besides,  there  was  the  mustering 
and  disposition  of  guards  and  soldiers — the  despatching  of  messengers, 
and  the  receiving  them — the  trampling  and  neighing  of  horses  without  the 
gate — the  flashing  of  arms,  and  rustling  of  plumes,  and  jingling  of  spurs 
within  it.  In  short,  it  was  that  gay  and  splendid  confusion,  in  which  the 
eye  of  youth  sees  all  that  is  brave  and  brilliant,  and  that  of  experience 
much  that  is  doubtful,  deceitful,  false,  and  hollow — hopes  that  will  never 
be  gratified — promises  which  will  never  be  fulfilled — pride  in  the  disguise 
of  humility — and  insolence  in  that  of  frank  and  generous  bounty."  J 

As  in  the  imagination  of  Shakespeare,  so  in  that  of  Scott, 
the  principal  form  and  object  were  the  structure — that  is  a 
hard  word — the  undulation  and  diversified  composition  of 
human  society ;  the  picture  of  this  stood  in  the  centre,  and 
everything  else  was  accessory  and  secondary  to  it.  The  old 
"  rows  of  books,  ''  in  which  Scott  so  peculiarly  delighted,  were 
made  to  contribute  their  element  to  this  varied  imagination  of 
humanity.  From  old  family  histories,  odd  memoirs,  old  law- 
trials,  his  fancy  elicited  new  traits  to  add  to  the  motley  assem- 

1  Chap,  xviii.,  3rd  paragraph. 
VOL.   II.  7 


Literary  Studies. 


blage.  His  objection  to  democracy — an  objection  of  which  we 
can  only  appreciate  the  emphatic  force,  when  we  remember 
that  his  youth  was  contemporary  with  the  first  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  the  controversy  as  to  the  uniform  and  stereotyped 
rights  of  man — was,  that  it  would  sweep  away  this  entire 
picture,  level  prince  and  peasant  in  a  common  egalite, — 
substitute  a  scientific  rigidity  for  the  irregular  and  pictur- 
esque growth  of  centuries, — replace  an  abounding  and  genial 
life  by  a  symmetrical  but  lifeless  mechanism.  All  the  de- 
scriptions of  society  in  the  novels, — whether  of  feudal  society, 
of  modern  Scotch  society  or  of  English  society, — are  largely 
coloured  by  this  feeling.  It  peeps  out  everywhere,  and 
liberal  critics  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  it  was  a 
narrow  Toryism ;  but  in  reality,  it  is  a  subtle  compound  of 
the  natural  instinct  of  the  artist  with  the  plain  sagacity  of 
the  man  of  the  world. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  show  how  clearly  the  same  sagacity 
appears  in  his  delineation  of  the  various  great  events  and 
movements  in  society  which  are  described  in  the  Scotch  novels. 
There  is  scarcely  one  of  them  which  does  not  bear  it  on  its 
surface.  Objections  may,  as  we  shall  show,  be  urged  against 
the  delineation  which  Scott  has  given  of  the  Puritan  resistance 
and  rebellions,  yet  scarcely  any  one  will  say  there  is  not  a 
worldly  sense  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  objection  is, 
that  it  is  too  worldly,  and  far  too  exclusively  sensible. 

The  same  thoroughly  well-grounded  sagacity  and  compre- 
hensive appreciation  of  human  life  is  shown  in  the  treatment 
of  what  we  may  call  anomalous  characters.  In  general, 
monstrosity  is  no  topic  for  art.  Every  one  has  known  in  real 
life  characters  which  if,  apart  from  much  experience,  he 
had  found  described  in  books,  he  would  have  thought  un- 
natural and  impossible.  Scott,  however,  abounds  in  such 
characters.  Meg  Merrilies,  Edie  Ochiltree,  Radcliffe,1  are 
1  In  Guy  Mannering,  The  Antiquary  and  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian. 


The  Waverley  Novels.  gg 

more  or  less  of  that  description.  That  of  Meg  Merrilies 
especially  is  as  distorted  and  eccentric  as  anything  can  be. 
Her  appearance  is  described  as  making  Mannering  "  start "  ; 
and  well  it  might. 

"  She  was  full  six  feet  high,  wore  a  man's  greatcoat  over  the  rest  of 
her  dress,  had  in  her  hand  a  goodly  sloethorn  cudgel,  and  in  all  points  of 
equipment  except  her  petticoats  seemed  rather  masculine  than  feminine. 
Her  dark  elf-locks  shot  out  like  the  snakes  of  the  gorgon  between  an  old- 
fashioned  bonnet  called  a  bongrace,  heightening  the  singular  effect  of 
her  strong  and  weather-beaten  features,  which  they  partly  shadowed, 
while  her  eye  had  a  wild  roll  that  indicated  something  of  insanity."  1 

Her  career  in  the  tale  corresponds  with  the  strangeness 
of  her  exterior.  "  Harlot,  thief,  witch,  and  gipsy,"  as  she 
describes  herself,  the  hero  is  preserved  by  her  virtues ;  half- 
crazed  as  she  is  described  to  be,  he  owes  his  safety  on  more 
than  one  occasion  to  her  skill  in  stratagem,  and  ability  in 
managing  those  with  whom  she  is  connected,  and  who  are 
most  likely  to  be  familiar  with  her  weakness  and  to  detect 
her  craft.  Yet  on  hardly  any  occasion  is  the  natural  reader 
conscious  of  this  strangeness.  Something  is  of  course  attri- 
butable to  the  skill  of  the  artist ;  for  no  other  power  of  mind 
could  produce  the  effect,  unless  it  were  aided  by  the  un- 
conscious tact  of  detailed  expression.  But  the  fundamental 
explanation  of  this  remarkable  success  is  the  distinctness 
with  which  Scott  saw  how  such  a  character  as  Meg  Merrilies 
arose  and  was  produced  out  of  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
gipsy  life  in  the  localities  in  which  he  has  placed  his  scene. 
He  has  exhibited  this  to  his  readers  not  by  lengthy  or 
elaborate  description,  but  by  chosen  incidents,  short  com- 
ments, and  touches  of  which  he  scarcely  foresaw  the  effect. 
This  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  fundamental  objection  to 
making  eccentricity  the  subject  of  artistic  treatment  can  be 
obviated.  Monstrosity  ceases  to  be  such  when  we  discern 
1  Guy  Mannering,  chap.  iii. 


zoo  Literary  Studies. 


the  laws  of  Nature  which  evolve  it :  when  a  real  science 
explains  its  phenomena,  we  find  that  it  is  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  what  we  call  the  natural  type,  but  that  some  rare 
adjunct  or  uncommon  casualty  has  interfered  and  distorted 
a  nature  which  is  really  the  same,  into  a  phenomenon  which 
is  altogether  different.  Just  so  with  eccentricity  in  human 
character ;  it  becomes  a  topic  of  literary  art  only  when  its 
identity  with  the  ordinary  principles  of  human  nature  is 
exhibited  in  the  midst  of,  and  as  it  were  by  means  of,  the 
superficial  unlikeness.  Such  a  skill,  however,  requires  an 
easy  careless  familiarity  with  usual  human  life  and  common 
human  conduct.  A  writer  must  have  a  sympathy  with 
health  before  he  can  show  us  how,  and  where,  and  to  what 
extent,  that  which  is  unhealthy  deviates  from  it ;  and  it  is 
this  consistent  acquaintance  with  regular  life  which  makes 
the  irregular  characters  of  Scott  so  happy  a  contrast  to  the 
uneasy  distortions  of  less  sagacious  novelists. 

A  good  deal  of  the  same  criticism  may  be  applied  to  the 
delineation  which  Scott  has  given  us  of  the  poor.  In  truth, 
poverty  is  an  anomaly  to  rich  people.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
make  out  why  people  who  want  dinner  do  not  ring  the 
bell.  One  half  of  the  world,  according  to  the  saying,  do 
not  know  how  the  other  half  live.  Accordingly,  nothing  is 
so  rare  in  fiction  as  a  good  delineation  of  the  poor.  Though 
perpetually  with  us  in  reality,  we  rarely  meet  them  in  our 
reading.  The  requirements  of  the  case  present  an  unusual 
difficulty  to  artistic  delineation.  A  good  deal  of  the  character 
of  the  poor  is  an  unfit  topic  for  continuous  art,  and  yet  we 
wish  to  have  in  our  books  a  life-like  exhibition  of  the  whole 
of  that  character.  Mean  manners  and  mean  vices  are  unfit 
for  prolonged  delineation  ;  the  every-day  pressure  of  narrow 
necessities  is  too  petty  a  pain  and  too  anxious  a  reality  to 
be  dwelt  upon.  We  can  bear  the  mere  description  of  the 
Parish  Register — 


The  Waverley  Novels.  101 

"  But  this  poor  farce  has  neither  truth  nor  art 
To  please  the  fancy  or  to  touch  the  heart. 
Dark  but  not  awful,  dismal  but  yet  mean, 
With  anxious  bustle  moves  the  cumbrous  scene  ; 
Presents  no  objects  tender  or  profound, 
But  spreads  its  cold  unmeaning  gloom  around  ;  " — 

but  who  could  bear  to  have  a  long  narrative  of  fortunes 
"dismal  but  yet  mean,"  with  characters  "dark  but  not 
awful,"  and  no  objects  "  tender  or  profound  "  ?  Mr.  Dickens 
has  in  various  parts  of  his  writings  been  led  by  a  sort  of 
pre-Raphaelite  cultus  of  reality  into  an  error  of  this  species. 
His  poor  people  have  taken  to  their  poverty  very  thoroughly  ; 
they  are  poor  talkers  and  poor  livers,  and  in  all  ways  poor 
people  to  read  about.  A  whole  array  of  writers  have 
fallen  into  an  opposite  mistake.  Wishing  to  preserve  their 
delineations  clear  from  the  defects  of  meanness  and  vulgarity, 
they  have  attributed  to  the  poor  a  fancied  happiness  and 
Arcadian  simplicity.  The  conventional  shepherd  of  ancient 
times  was  scarcely  displeasing  :  that  which  is  by  everything 
except  express  avowal  removed  from  the  sphere  of  reality 
does  not  annoy  us  by  its  deviations  from  reality ;  but  the 
fictitious  poor  of  sentimental  novelists  are  brought  almost 
into  contact  with  real  life,  half  claim  to  be  copies  of  what 
actually  exists  at  our  very  doors,  are  introduced  in  close 
proximity  to  characters  moving  in  a  higher  rank,  over  whom 
no  such  ideal  charm  is  diffused,  and  who  are  painted  with 
as  much  truth  as  the  writer's  ability  enables  him  to  give. 
Accordingly,  the  contrast  is  evident  and  displeasing:  the 
harsh  outlines  of  poverty  will  not  bear  the  artificial  rose- 
tint;  they  are  seen  through  it,  like  high  cheek-bones  through 
the  delicate  colours  of  artificial  youth  ;  we  turn  away  with 
some  disgust  from  the  false  elegance  and  undeceiving  art ; 
we  prefer  the  rough  poor  of  nature  to  the  petted  poor  of  the 
refining  describer.  Scott  has  most  felicitously  avoided  both 


IO2  Literary  Studies. 


these  errors.  His  poor  people  are  never  coarse  and  never 
vulgar  ;  their  lineaments  have  the  rude  traits  which  a  life 
of  conflict  will  inevitably  leave  on  the  minds  and  manners 
of  those  who  are  to  lead  it ;  their  notions  have  the  narrow- 
ness which  is  inseparable  from  a  contracted  experience ; 
their  knowledge  is  not  more  extended  than  their  restricted 
means  of  attaining  it  would  render  possible.  Almost  alone 
among  novelists  Scott  has  given  a  thorough,  minute,  life- 
like description  of  poor  persons,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
genial  and  pleasing.  The  reason  seems  to  be,  that  the  firm 
sagacity  of  his  genius  comprehended  the  industrial  aspect 
of  poor  people's  life  thoroughly  and  comprehensively,  his 
eKperience  brought  it  before  him  easily  and  naturally,  and 
his  artist's  mind  and  genial  disposition  enabled  him  to  dwell 
on  those  features  which  would  be  most  pleasing  to  the  world 
in  general.  In  fact,  his  own  mind  of  itself  and  by  its  own 
nature  dwelt  on  those  very  peculiarities.  He  could  not 
remove  his  firm  and  instructed  genius  into  the  domain  of 
Arcadian  unreality,  but  he  was  equally  unable  to  dwell  prin- 
cipally, peculiarly,  or  consecutively,  on  those  petty,  vulgar, 
mean  details  in  which  such  a  writer  as  Crabbe  lives  and 
breathes.  Hazlitt  said  that  Crabbe  described  a  poor  man's 
cottage  like  a  man  who  came  to  distrain  for  rent ;  he  cata- 
logued every  trivial  piece  of  furniture,  defects  and  cracks  and 
all.  Scott  describes  it  as  a  cheerful  but  most  sensible  land- 
lord would  describe  a  cottage  on  his  property :  he  has  a 
pleasure  in  it.  No  detail,  or  few  details,  in  the  life  of  the 
inmates  escape  his  experienced  and  interested  eye ;  but  he 
dwells  on  those  which  do  not  displease  him.  He  sympathises 
with  their  rough  industry  and  plain  joys  and  sorrows.  He 
does  not  fatigue  himself  or  excite  their  wondering  smile  by 
theoretical  plans  of  impossible  relief.  He  makes  the  best  of 
the  life  which  is  given,  and  by  a  sanguine  sympathy  makes 
it  still  better.  A  hard  life  many  characters  in  Scott  seem  to 


The  Wavertey  Novels.  103 

lead ;  but  he  appreciates,  and  makes  his  reader  appreciate, 
the  full  value  of  natural  feelings,  plain  thoughts,  and  applied 
sagacity. 

His  ideas  of  political  economy  are  equally  characteristic 
of  his  strong  sense  and  genial  mind.  He  was  always 
sneering  at  Adam  Smith,  and  telling  many  legends  of  that 
philosopher's  absence  of  mind  and  inaptitude  for  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  life.  A  contact  with  the  Edinburgh  logicians 
had,  doubtless,  not  augmented  his  faith  in  the  formal  de- 
ductions of  abstract  economy ;  nevertheless,  with  the  facts 
before  him,  he  could  give  a  very  plain  and  satisfactory  ex- 
position of  the  genial  consequences  of  old  abuses,  the  dis- 
tinct necessity  for  stern  reform,  and  the  delicate  humanity 
requisite  for  introducing  that  reform  temperately  and  with 
feeling : — 

"  Even  so  the  Laird  of  Ellangowan  ruthlessly  commenced  his  magis- 
terial reform,  at  the  expense  of  various  established  and  superannuated 
pickers  and  stealers,  who  had  been  his  neighbours  for  half  a  century.  He 
wrought  his  miracles  like  a  second  Duke  Humphrey ;  and  by  the  influence 
of  the  beadle's  rod,  caused  the  lame  to  walk,  the  blind  to  see,  and  the 
palsied  to  labour.  He  detected  poachers,  black-fishers,  orchard-breakers, 
and  pigeon-shooters  ;  had  the  applause  of  the  bench  for  his  reward,  and 
the  public  credit  of  an  active  magistrate. 

"  All  this  good  had  its  rateable  proportion  of  evil.  Even  an  admitted 
nuisance,  of  ancient  standing,  should  not  be  abated  without  some  caution. 
The  zeal  of  our  worthy  friend  now  involved  in  great  distress  sundry 
personages  whose  idle  and  mendicant  habits  his  own  Idchesse  had  con- 
tributed to  foster,  until  these  habits  had  become  irreclaimable,  or  whose 
real  incapacity  for  exertion  rendered  them  fit  objects,  in  their  own  phrase, 
for  the  charity  of  all  well-disposed  Christians.  The  '  long-remembered 
beggar,'  who  for  twenty  years  had  made  his  regular  rounds  within  the 
neighbourhood,  received  rather  as  an  humble  friend  than  as  an  object  of 
charity,  was  sent  to  the  neighbouring  workhouse.  The  decrepit  dame, 
who  travelled  round  the  parish  upon  a  hand-barrow,  circulating  from  house 
to  house  like  a  bad  shilling,  which  every  one  is  in  haste  to  pass  to  his 
neighbour  ;  she  who  used  to  call  for  her  bearers  as  loud,  or  louder,  than 
a  traveller  demands  post-horses,  even  she  shared  the  same  disastrous  fate. 
The  '  daft  Jock,'  who,  half  knave,  half  idiot,  had  been  the  sport  of  each 


104  Literary  Studies. 


succeeding  race  of  village  children  for  a  good  part  of  a  century,  was  re- 
mitted to  the  county  bridewell,  where,  secluded  from  free  air  and  sunshine, 
the  only  advantages  he  was  capable  of  enjoying,  he  pined  and  died  in  the 
course  of  six  months.  The  old  sailor,  who  had  so  long  rejoiced  the  smoky 
rafters  of  every  kitchen  in  the  country,  by  singing  '  Captain  Ward '  and 
'  Bold  Admiral  Benbow,'  was  banished  from  the  county  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  he  was  supposed  to  speak  with  a  strong  Irish  accent. 
Even  the  annual  rounds  of  the  pedlar  were  abolished  by  the  Justice,  in 
his  hasty  zeal  for  the  administration  of  rural  police. 

"  These  things  did  not  pass  without  notice  and  censure.  We  are  not 
made  of  wood  or  stone,  and  the  things  which  connect  themselves  with  our 
hearts  and  habits  cannot,  like  bark  or  lichen,  be  rent  away  without  our 
missing  them.  The  farmer's  dame  lacked  her  usual  share  of  intelligence, 
perhaps  also  the  self-applause  which  she  had  felt  while  distributing  the 
awmous  (alms),  in  shape  of  a  gowpen  (handful)  of  oatmeal,  to  the  men- 
dicant who  brought  the  news.  The  cottage  felt  inconvenience  from 
interruption  of  the  petty  trade  carried  on  by  the  itinerant  dealers.  The 
children  lacked  their  supply  of  sugar-plums  and  toys  ;  the  young  women 
wanted  pins,  ribbons,  combs,  and  ballads  ;  and  the  old  could  no  longer 
barter  their  eggs  for  salt,  snuff,  and  tobacco.  All  these  circumstances 
brought  the  busy  Laird  of  Ellangowan  into  discredit,  which  was  the  more 
general  on  account  of  his  former  popularity.  Even  his  lineage  was 
brought  up  in  judgment  against  him.  They  thought  '  naething  of  what 
the  like  of  Greenside,  or  Burnville,  or  Viewforth,  might  do,  that  were 
strangers  in  the  country ;  but  Ellangowan  !  that  had  been  a  name  amang 
them  since  the  mirk  Monanday,  and  lang  before — him  to  be  grinding  the 
puir  at  that  rate ! — They  ca'd  his  grandfather  the  Wicked  Laird ;  but, 
though  he  was  whiles  fractious  aneuch,  when  he  got  into  roving  company, 
and  had  ta'en  the  drap  drink,  he  would  have  scorned  to  gang  on  at  this 
gate.  Na,  na,  the  muckle  chumley  in  the  Auld  Place  reeked  like  a 
killogie  in  his  time,  and  there  were  as  mony  puir  folk  riving  at  the  banes 
in  the  court  and  about  the  door,  as  there  were  gentles  in  the  ha'.  And 
the  leddy,  on  ilka  Christmas  night  as  it  came  round,  gae  twelve  siller 
pennies  to  ilka  puir  body  about,  in  honour  of  the  twelve  apostles  like. 
They  were  fond  to  ca'  it  papistrie  ;  but  I  think  our  great  folk  might  take 
a  lesson  frae  the  papists  whiles.  They  gie  another  sort  o"  help  to  puir 
folk  than  just  dinging  down  a  saxpence  in  the  brod  on  the  Sabbath,  and 
kilting,  and  scourging,  and  drumming  them  a'  the  sax  days  o'  the  week 
besides.' " 1 

1  Guy  Mannering,  chap.  vi. 


The  Waverley  Novels.  105 

Many  other  indications  of  the  same  healthy  and  natural 
sense,  which  gives  so  much  of  their  characteristic  charm  to 
the  Scotch  novels,  might  be  pointed  out,  if  it  were  necessary 
to  weary  our  readers  by  dwelling  longer  on  a  point  we  have 
already  laboured  so  much.  One  more,  however,  demands 
notice  because  of  its  importance,  and  perhaps  also  because, 
from  its  somewhat  less  obvious  character,  it  might  other- 
wise escape  without  notice.  There  has  been  frequent  con- 
troversy as  to  the  penal  code,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  of  fiction; 
that  is,  as  to  the  apportionment  of  reward  and  punishment 
respectively  to  the  good  and  evil  personages  therein  de- 
lineated ;  and  the  practice  of  authors  has  been  as  various 
as  the  legislation  of  critics.  One  school  abandons  all 
thought  on  the  matter,  and  declares  that  in  the  real  life  we 
see  around  us,  good  people  often  fail,  and  wicked  people 
continually  prosper ;  and  would  deduce  the  precept,  that  it 
is  unwise  in  an  art  which  should  "  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature,"  *  not  to  copy  the  uncertain  and  irregular  distribu- 
tion of  its  sanctions.  Another  school,  with  an  exactness 
which  savours  at  times  of  pedantry,  apportions  the  success 
and  the  failure,  the  pain  and  the  pleasure  of  fictitious  life,  to 
the  moral  qualities  of  those  who  are  living  in  it — does  not 
think  at  all,  or  but  little,  of  any  other  quality  in  those 
characters,  and  does  not  at  all  care  whether  the  penalty  and 
reward  are  evolved  in  natural  sequence  from  the  circum- 
stances and  characters  of  the  tale,  or  are  owing  to  some 
monstrous  accident  far  removed  from  all  relation  of  cause 
or  consequence  to  those  facts  and  people.  Both  these 
classes  of  writers  produce  works  which  jar  on  the  natural 
sense  of  common  readers,  and  are  at  issue  with  the  analytic 
criticism  of  the  best  critics.  One  school  leaves  an  impres- 
sion of  an  uncared-for  world,  in  which  there  is  no  right  and 
no  wrong;  the  other,  of  a  sort  of  Governesses'  Institution 

1  "  Hamlet,"  iii.  2. 


106  Literary  Studies. 


of  a  world,  where  all  praise  and  all  blame,  all  good  and  all 
pain,  are  made  to  turn  on  special  graces  and  petty  offences, 
pesteringly  spoken  of  and  teasingly  watched  for.  The 
manner  of  Scott  is  thoroughly  different ;  you  can  scarcely 
lay  down  any  novel  of  his  without  a  strong  feeling  that  the 
world  in  which  the  fiction  has  been  laid,  and  in  which  your 
imagination  has  been  moving,  is  one  subject  to  laws  of 
retribution  which,  though  not  apparent  on  a  superficial 
glance,  are  yet  in  steady  and  consistent  operation,  and  will 
be  quite  sure  to  work  their  due  effect,  if  time  is  only  given 
to  them.  Sagacious  men  know  that  this  is  in  its  best 
aspect  the  condition  of  life.  Certain  of  the  ungodly  may, 
notwithstanding  the  Psalmist,  flourish  even  through  life  like 
a  green  bay-tree ;  for  providence,  in  external  appearance 
(far  differently  from  the  real  truth  of  things,  as  we  may  one 
day  see  it),  works  by  a  scheme  of  averages.  Most  people 
who  ought  to  succeed,  do  succeed ;  most  people  who  do  fail, 
ought  to  fail.  But  there  is  no  exact  adjustment  of  " mark" 
to  merit ;  the  competitive  examination  system  appears  to  have 
an  origin  more  recent  than  the  creation  of  the  world  ; — "  on 
the  whole,"  "  speaking  generally,"  "  looking  at  life  as  a 
whole,"  are  the  words  in  which  we  must  describe  the  pro- 
vidential adjustment  of  visible  good  and  evil  to  visible  good- 
ness and' badness.  And  when  we  look  more  closely,  we  see 
that  these  general  results  are  the  consequences  of  certain 
principles  which  work  half  unseen,  and  which  are  effectual 
in  the  main,  though  thwarted  here  and  there.  It  is  this 
comprehensive  though  inexact  distribution  of  good  and  evil, 
which  is  suited  to  the  novelist,  and  it  is  exactly  this  which 
Scott  instinctively  adopted.  Taking  a  firm  and  genial  view 
of  the  common  facts  of  life, — seeing  it  as  an  experienced 
observer  and  tried  man  of  action, — he  could  not  help  giving 
the  representation  of  it  which  is  insensibly  borne  in  on  the 
minds  of  such  persons.  He  delineates  it  as  a  world  moving 


The  Waver  ley  Novels.  107 

according  to  laws  which  are  always  producing  their  effect, 
never  have  produced  it ;  sometimes  fall  short  a  little ;  are 
always  nearly  successful.  Good  sense  produces  its  effect, 
as  well  as  good  intention ;  ability  is  valuable  as  well  as 
virtue.  It  is  this  peculiarity  which  gives  to  his  works,  more 
than  anything  else,  the  lifelikeness  which  distinguishes 
them ;  the  average  of  the  copy  is  struck  on  the  same  scale 
as  that  of  reality  ;  an  unexplained,  uncommented-on  adjust- 
ment works  in  the  one,  just  as  a  hidden,  imperceptible 
principle  of  apportionment  operates  in  the  other. 

The  romantic  susceptibility  of  Scott's  imagination  is 
as  obvious  in  his  novels  as  his  matter-of-fact  sagacity.  We 
can  find  much  of  it  in  the  place  in  which  we  should  naturally 
look  first  for  it, — his  treatment  of  his  heroines.  We  are  no 
indiscriminate  admirers  of  these  young  ladies,  and  shall 
shortly  try  to  show  how  much  they  are  inferior  as  imagina- 
tive creations  to  similar  creations  of  the  very  highest  artists. 
But  the  mode  in  which  the  writer  speaks  of  them  every- 
where indicates  an  imagination  continually  under  the  illusion 
which  we  term  romance.  A  gentle  tone  of  manly  admira- 
tion pervades  the  whole  delineation  of  their  words  and 
actions.  If  we  look  carefully  at  the  narratives  of  some 
remarkable  female  novelists — it  would  be  invidious  to  give 
the  instances  by  name — we  shall  be  struck  at  once  with 
the  absence  of  this ;  they  do  not  half  like  their  heroines. 
It  would  be  satirical  to  say  that  they  were  jealous  of  them  ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  they  analyse  the  mode  in  which  their 
charms  produce  their  effects,  and  the  minutice  of  their 
operation,  much  in  the  same  way  in  which  a  slightly  jealous 
lady  examines  the  claims  of  the  heroines  of  society.  The 
same  writers  have  invented  the  atrocious  species  of  plain 
heroines.  Possibly  none  of  the  frauds  which  are  now  so 
much  the  topic  of  common  remark  are  so  irritating,  as  that 
to  which  the  purchaser  of  a  novel  is  a  victim  on  finding 


Literary  Studies. 


that  he  has  only  to  peruse  a  narrative  of  the  conduct  and 
sentiments  of  an  ugly  lady.  "  Two-and-sixpence  to  know 
the  heart  which  has  high  cheek-bones!"  Was  there  ever 
such  an  imposition  ?  Scott  would  have  recoiled  from  such 
a  conception.  Even  Jeanie  Deans, 1  though  no  heroine, 
like  Flora  Macivor, 2  is  described  as  "comely,"  and  capable 
of  looking  almost  pretty  when  required,  and  she  has  a 
compensating  set-off  in  her  sister,  who  is  beautiful  as  well 
as  unwise.  Speaking  generally,  as  is  the  necessity  of 
criticism,  Scott  makes  his  heroines,  at  least  by  profession, 
attractive,  and  dwells  on  their  attractiveness,  though  not 
with  the  wild  ecstasy  of  insane  youth,  yet  with  the  tempered 
and  mellow  admiration  common  to  genial  men  of  this 
world.  Perhaps  at  times  we  are  rather  displeased  at  his 
explicitness,  and  disposed  to  hang  back  and  carp  at  the 
admirable  qualities  displayed  to  us.  But  this  is  only  a 
stronger  evidence  of  the  peculiarity  which  we  speak  of, — 
of  the  unconscious  sentiments  inseparable  from  Scott's 
imagination. 

The  same  romantic  tinge  undeniably  shows  itself  in 
Scott's  pictures  of  the  past.  Many  exceptions  have  been 
taken  to  the  detail  of  mediaeval  life  as  it  is  described  to  us 
in  Ivanhoe  ;  but  one  merit  will  always  remain  to  it,  and  will 
be  enough  to  secure  to  it  immense  popularity.  It  describes 
the  middle  ages  as  we  should  have  wished  them  to  have 
been.  We  do  not  mean  that  the  delineation  satisfies  those 
accomplished  admirers  of  the  old  Church  system  who  fancy 
that  they  have  found  among  the  prelates  and  barons  of  the 
fourteenth  century  a  close  approximation  to  the  theocracy 
which  they  would  recommend  for  our  adoption.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  theological  merits  of  the  middle  ages  are  not  promi- 
nent in  Scott's  delineation.  "  Dogma  "  was  not  in  his  way  : 
a  cheerful  man  of  the  world  is  not  anxious  for  a  precise 
Un  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian.  2In  Waverley. 


The  Waverley  Novels.  109 

definition  of  peculiar  doctrines.  The  charm  of  Ivanhoe  is 
addressed  to  a  simpler  sort  of  imagination,  to  that  kind  of 
boyish  fancy  which  idolises  mediaeval  society  as  the  "  fight- 
ing time".  Every  boy  has  heard  of  tournaments,  and  has 
a  firm  persuasion  that  in  an  age  of  tournaments  life  was 
thoroughly  well  understood.  A  martial  society,  where  men 
fought  hand  to  hand  on  good  horses  with  large  lances,  in 
peace  for  pleasure,  and  in  war  for  business,  seems  the  very 
ideal  of  perfection  to  a  bold  and  simply  fanciful  boy. 
Ivanhoe  spreads  before  him  the  full  landscape  of  such  a 
realm,  with  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  a  black  horse,  and  the 
passage  of  arms  at  Ashby.  Of  course  he  admires  it,  and 
thinks  there  was  never  such  a  writer,  and  will  never  more 
be  such  a  world.  And  a  mature  critic  will  share  his  ad- 
miration, at  least  to  the  extent  of  admitting  that  nowhere 
else  have  the  elements  of  a  martial  romance  been  so 
gorgeously  accumulated  without  becoming  oppressive ; 
their  fanciful  charm  been  so  powerfully  delineated,  and 
yet  so  constantly  relieved  by  touches  of  vigorous  sagacity. 
One  single  fact  shows  how  great  the  romantic  illusion  is. 
The  pressure  of  painful  necessity  is  scarcely  so  great  in 
this  novel,  as  in  novels  of  the  same  writer  in  which  the 
scene  is  laid  in  modern  times.  Much  may  be  said  in  favour 
of  the  mediaeval  system  as  contradistinguished  from  existing 
society;  much  has  been  said.  But  no  one  can  maintain 
that  general  comfort  was  as  much  diffused  as  it  is  now. 
A  certain  ease  pervades  the  structure  of  later  society.  Our 
houses  may  not  last  so  long,  are  not  so.  picturesque,  will  leave 
no  such  ruins  behind  them  ;  but  they  are  warmed  with  hot 
water,  have  no  draughts,  and  contain  sofas  instead  of  rushes. 
A  slight  daily  unconscious  luxury  is  hardly  ever  wanting  to 
the  dwellers  in  civilisation  ;  like  the  gentle  air  of  a  genial 
climate,  it  is  a  perpetual  minute  enjoyment.  The  absence  of 
this  marks  a  rude  barbaric  time.  We  may  avail  ourselves  of 


no  Literary  Studies. 


rough  pleasures,  stirring  amusements,  exciting  actions, 
strange  rumours ;  but  life  is  hard  and  harsh.  The  cold 
air  of  the  keen  North  may  brace  and  invigorate,  but  it 
cannot  soothe  us.  All  sensible  people  know  that  the  middle 
ages  must  have  been  very  uncomfortable ;  there  was  a 
difficulty  about  "  good  food"; — almost  insuperable  obstacles 
to  the  cultivation  of  nice  detail  and  small  enjoyment.  No 
one  knew  the  abstract  facts  on  which  this  conclusion  rests 
better  than  Scott ;  but  his  delineation  gives  no  general 
idea  of  the  result.  A  thoughtless  reader  rises  with  the 
impression  that  the  middle  ages  had  the  same  elements 
of  happiness  which  we  have  at  present,  and  that  they  had 
fighting  besides.  We  do  not  assert  that  this  tenet  is  ex- 
plicitly taught ;  on  the  contrary,  many  facts  are  explained, 
and  many  customs  elucidated  from  which  a  discriminating 
and  deducing  reader  would  infer  the  meanness  of  poverty 
and  the  harshness  of  barbarism.  But  these  less  imposing 
traits  escape  the  rapid,  and  still  more  the  boyish  reader. 
His  general  impression  is  one  of  romance;  and  though, 
when  roused,  Scott  was  quite  able  to  take  a  distinct  view 
of  the  opposing  facts,  he  liked  his  own  mind  to  rest  for  the 
most  part  in  the  same  pleasing  illusion. 

The  same  sort  of  historical  romance  is  shown  likewise 
in  Scott's  picture  of  remarkable  historical  characters.  His 
Richard  I.  is  the  traditional  Richard,  with  traits  heightened 
and  ennobled  in  perfect  conformity  to  the  spirit  of  tradition. 
Some  illustration  of  the  same  quality  might  be  drawn  from 
his  delineations  of  the  Puritan  rebellions  and  the  Cavalier 
enthusiasm.  We  might  show  that  he  ever  dwells  on  the 
traits  and  incidents  most  attractive  to  a  genial  and  spirited 
imagination.  But  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  the 
power  which  romantic  illusion  exercised  over  him,  is  his 
delineation  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  He  refused  at  one 
time  of  his  life  to  write  a  biography  of  that  princess 


The  Waverley  Novels.  ill 

"  because  his  opinion  was  contrary  to  his  feeling ".  He 
evidently  considered  her  guilt  to  be  clearly  established,  and 
thought,  with  a  distinguished  lawyer,  that  he  should  "  direct 
a  jury  to  find  her  guilty  "  ;  but  his  fancy,  like  that  of  most 
of  his  countrymen,  took  a  peculiar  and  special  interest  in 
the  beautiful  lady  who,  at  any  rate,  had  suffered  so  much 
and  so  fatally  at  the  hands  of  a  queen  of  England.  He 
could  not  bring  himself  to  dwell  with  nice  accuracy  on  the 
evidence  which  substantiates  her  criminality,  or  on  the  still 
clearer  indications  of  that  unsound  and  over-crafty  judgment, 
which  was  the  fatal  inheritance  of  the  Stuart  family,  and 
which,  in  spite  of  advantages  that  scarcely  any  other  family 
in  the  world  has  enjoyed,  has  made  their  name  a  historical 
by-word  for  misfortune.  The  picture  in  The  Abbot,  one  of 
the  best  historical  pictures  which  Scott  has  given  us,  is 
principally  the  picture  of  the  queen  as  the  fond  tradition  of 
his  countrymen  exhibited  her.  Her  entire  innocence,  it  is 
true,  is  never  alleged :  but  the  enthusiasm  of  her  followers 
is  dwelt  on  with  approving  sympathy ;  their  confidence  is 
set  forth  at  large ;  her  influence  over  them  is  skilfully  de- 
lineated ;  the  fascination  of  charms  chastened  by  misfortune 
is  delicately  indicated.  We  see  a  complete  picture  of  the 
beautiful  queen,  of  the  suffering  and  sorrowful,  but  yet  not 
insensible  woman.  Scott  could  not,  however,  as  a  close 
study  will  show  us,  quite  conceal  the  unfavourable  nature 
of  his  fundamental  opinion.  In  one  remarkable  passage 
the  struggle  of  the  judgment  is  even  conspicuous,  and  in 
others  the  sagacity  of  the  practised  lawyer, — the  "  thread 
of  the  attorney,"  as  he  used  to  call  it,  in  his  nature, — 
qualifies  and  modifies  the  sentiment  hereditary  in  his 
countrymen,  and  congenial  to  himself. 

This  romantic  imagination  is  a  habit  of  power  (as  we 
may  choose  to  call  it)  of  mind  which  is  almost  essential  to 
the  highest  success  in  the  historical  novel,  The  aim,  at  any 


112  Literary  Studies. 


rate  the  effect,  of  this  class  of  works  seems  to  be  to  deepen 
and  confirm  the  received  view  of  historical  personages.  A 
great  and  acute  writer  may,  from  an  accurate  study  of 
original  documents,  discover  that  those  impressions  are 
erroneous,  and  by  a  process  of  elaborate  argument  substi- 
tute others  which  he  deems  more  accurate.  But  this  can 
only  be  effected  by  writing  a  regular  history.  The  essence 
of  the  achievement  is  the  proof.  If  Mr.  Froude  had  put 
forward  his  view  of  Henry  V.'s  character  in  a  professed 
novel,  he  would  have  been  laughed  at.  It  is  only  by  a 
rigid  adherence  to  attested  facts  and  authentic  documents, 
that  a  view  so  original  could  obtain  even  a  hearing.  We 
start  back  with  a  little  anger  from  a  representation  which  is 
avowedly  imaginative,  and  which  contradicts  our  impressions. 
We  do  not  like  to  have  our  opinions  disturbed  by  reasoning ; 
but  it  is  impertinent  to  attempt  to  disturb  them  by  fancies. 
A  writer  of  the  historical  novel  is  bound  by  the  popular 
conception  of  his  subject ;  and  commonly  it  will  be  found 
that  this  popular  impression  is  to  some  extent  a  romantic 
one.  An  element  of  exaggeration  clings  to  the  popular  judg- 
ment: great  vices  are  made  greater,- great  virtues  greater 
also  ;  interesting  incidents  are  made  more  interesting,  soft 
legends  more  soft.  The  novelist  who  disregards  this  tend- 
ency will  do  so  at  the  peril  of  his  popularity.  His  business 
is  to  make  attraction  more  attractive,  and  not  to  impair  the 
pleasant  pictures  of  ready-made  romance  by  an  attempt  at 
grim  reality. 

We  may  therefore  sum  up  the  indications  of  this  charac- 
teristic excellence  of  Scott's  novels  by  saying,  that  more  than 
any  novelist  he  has  given  us  fresh  pictures  of  practical  human 
society,  with  its  cares  and  troubles,  its  excitements  and  its 
pleasures ;  that  he  has  delineated  more  distinctly  than  any 
one  else  the  framework  in  which  this  society  inheres,  and  by 
the  boundaries  of  which  it  is  shaped  and  limited ;  that  he 


The  Waverley  Novels. 


has  made  more  clear  the  way  in  which  strange  and  eccentric 
characters  grow  out  of  that  ordinary  and  usual  system  of 
life ;  that  he  has  extended  his  view  over  several  periods  of 
society,  and  given  an  animated  description  of  the  external 
appearance  of  each,  and  a  firm  representation  of  its  social 
institutions ;  that  he  has  shown  very  graphically  what  we 
may  call  the  worldly  laws  of  moral  government ;  and  that 
over  all  these  he  has  spread  the  glow  of  sentiment  natural 
to  a  manly  mind,  and  an  atmosphere  of  generosity  congenial 
to  a  cheerful  one.  It  is  from  the  collective  effect  of  these 
causes,  and  from  the  union  of  sense  and  sentiment  which  is 
the  principle  of  them  all,  that  Scott  derives  the  peculiar 
healthiness  which  distinguishes  him.  There  are  no  such 
books  as  his  for  the  sick-room,  or  for  freshening  the  painful 
intervals  of  a  morbid  mind.  Mere  sense  is  dull,  mere  senti- 
ment unsubstantial ;  a  sensation  of  genial  healthiness  is 
only  given  by  what  combines  the  solidity  of  the  one  and  the 
brightening  charm  of  the  other. 

Some  guide  to  Scott's  defects,  or  to  the  limitations  of 
his  genius,  if  we  would  employ  a  less  ungenial  and  perhaps 
more  correct  expression,  is  to  be  discovered,  as  usual,  from 
the  consideration  of  his  characteristic  excellence.  As  it  is 
his  merit  to  give  bold  and  animated  pictures  of  this  world, 
it  is  his  defect  to  give  but  insufficient  representations  of 
qualities  which  this  world  does  not  exceedingly  prize, — of 
such  as  do  not  thrust  themselves  very  forward  in  it, — of  such 
as  are  in  some  sense  above  it.  We  may  illustrate  this  in 
several  ways. 

One  of  the  parts  of  human  nature  which  are  systematically 
omitted  in  Scott,  is  the  searching  and  abstract  intellect. 
This  did  not  lie  in  his  way.  No  man  had  a  stronger  sagacity, 
better  adapted  for  the  guidance  of  common  men,  and  the 
conduct  of  common  transactions.  Few  could  hope  to  form  a 
more  correct  opinion  on  things  and  subjects  which  were  brought 

VOL.    II.  8 


114  Literary  Studies. 


before  him  in  actual  life  ;  no  man  had  a  more  useful  intellect. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  as  will  be  generally  observed  to  be  the 
case,  no  one  was  less  inclined  to  that  probing  and  seeking 
and  anxious  inquiry  into  things  in  general  which  is  the  neces- 
sity of  some  minds,  and  a  sort  of  intellectual  famine  in  their 
nature.  Hehad  no  call  to  investigate  the  theory  of  the  universe, 
and  he  would  not  have  been  able  to  comprehend  those  who 
did.  Such  a  mind  as  Shelley's  would  have  been  entirely 
removed  from  his  comprehension.  He  had  no  call  to  mix 
"  awful  talk  and  asking  looks  "  *  with  his  love  of  the  visible 
scene.  He  could  not  have  addressed  the  universe : — 

"  I  have  watched 

Thy  shadow,  and  the  darkness  of  thy  steps ; 
And  my  heart  ever  gazes  on  the  depth 
Of  thy  deep  mysteries.     I  have  made  my  bed 
In  charnels  and  on  coffins,  where  black  death 
Keeps  record  of  the  trophies  won  from  thee, 
Hoping  to  still  these  obstinate  questionings 
Of  thee  and  thine,  by  forcing  some  lone  ghost, 
Thy  messenger,  to  render  up  the  tale 
Of  what  we  are."  2 

Such  thoughts  would  have  been  to  him  "  thinking  without 
an  object,"  "abstracted  speculations,"  "cobwebs  of  the 
unintelligible  brain ".  Above  all  minds,  his  had  the 
Baconian  propensity  to  work  upon  "  stuff".  At  first  sight, 
it  would  not  seem  that  this  was  a  defect  likely  to  be  very 
hurtful  to  the  works  of  a  novelist.  The  labours  of  the 
searching  and  introspective  intellect,  however  needful,  ab- 
sorbing, and  in  some  degree  delicious,  to  the  seeker  himself, 
are  not  in  general  very  delightful  to  those  who  are  not  seek- 
ing. Genial  men  in  middle  life  are  commonly  intolerant  of 
that  philosophising  which  their  prototype,  in  old  times, 
classed  side  by  side  with  the  lisping  of  youth.  'The  theo- 

1  Shelley,  "  Alastor  ".  2  Ibid 


The  Waverley  Novels.  115 

logical  novel,  which  was  a  few  years  ago  so  popular,  and 
which  is  likely  to  have  a  recurring  influence  in  times  when 
men's  belief  is  unsettled,  and  persons  who  cannot  or  will 
not  read  large  treatises  have  thoughts  in  their  minds  and 
inquiries  in  their  hearts,  suggests  to  those  who  are  ac- 
customed to  it  the  absence  elsewhere  of  what  is  necessarily 
one  of  its  most  distinctive  and  prominent  subjects.  The 
desire  to  attain  a  belief,  which  has  become  one  of  the  most 
familiar  sentiments  of  heroes  and  heroines,  would  have 
seemed  utterly  incongruous  to  the  plain  sagacity  of  Scott, 
and  also  to  his  old-fashioned  art.  Creeds  are  data  in  his 
novels ;  people  have  different  creeds,  but  each  keeps  his  own. 
Some  persons  will  think  that  this  is  not  altogether  amiss ; 
nor  do  we  particularly  wish  to  take  up  the  defence  of  the 
dogmatic  novel.  Nevertheless,  it  will  strike  those  who  are 
accustomed  to  the  youthful  generation  of  a  cultivated  time, 
that  the  passion  of  intellectual  inquiry  is  one  of  the  strongest 
impulses  in  many  of  them,  and  one  of  those  which  give  the 
predominant  colouring  to  the  conversation  and  exterior  mind 
of  many  more.  And  a  novelist  will  not  exercise  the  most 
potent  influence  over  those  subject  to  that  passion,  if  he  en- 
tirely omit  the  delineation  of  it.  Scott's  works  have  only  one 
merit  in  this  relation  :  they  are  an  excellent  rest  to  those 
who  have  felt  this  passion,  and  have  had  something  too 
much  of  it. 

The  same  indisposition  to  the  abstract  exercises  of  the 
intellect  shows  itself  in  the  reflective  portions  of  Scott's 
novels,  and  perhaps  contributes  to  their  popularity  with  that 
immense  majority  of  the  world  who  strongly  share  in  that 
same  indisposition :  it  prevents,  however,  their  having  the 
most  powerful  intellectual  influence  on  those  who  have  at 
any  time  of  their  lives  voluntarily  submitted  themselves  to 
this  acute  and  refining  discipline.  The  reflections  of  a 
practised  thinker  have  a  peculiar  charm,  like  the  last  touches 


n6  Literary  Studies. 


of  the  accomplished  artist.  The  cunning  exactitude  of  the 
professional  hand  leaves  a  trace  in  the  very  language.  A 
nice  discrimination  of  thought  makes  men  solicitous  of  the 
most  apt  expressions  to  diffuse  their  thoughts.  Both  words 
and  meaning  gain  a  metallic  brilliancy,  like  the  glittering 
precision  of  the  pure  Attic  air.  Scott's  is  a  healthy  and 
genial  world  of  reflection,  but  it  wants  the  charm  of  delicate 
exactitude. 

The  same  limitation  of  Scott's  genius  shows  itself  in  a 
very  different  portion  of  art — in  his  delineation  of  his 
heroines.  The  same  blunt  sagacity  of  imagination  which 
fitted  him  to  excel  in  the  rough  description  of  obvious  life, 
rather  unfitted  him  for  delineating  the  less  substantial 
essence  of  the  female  character.  The  nice  minutice  of 
society,  by  means  of  which  female  novelists  have  been  so 
successful  in  delineating  their  own  sex,  were  rather  too 
small  for  his  robust  and  powerful  mind.  Perhaps,  too,  a 
certain  unworldliness  of  imagination  is  necessary  to  enable 
men  to  comprehend  or  delineate  that  essence  :  unworldliness 
of  life  is  no  doubt  not  requisite ;  rather,  perhaps,  worldli- 
ness  is  necessary  to  the  acquisition  of  a  sufficient  experience. 
But  an  absorption  in  the  practical  world  does  not  seem 
favourable  to  a  comprehension  of  anything  which  does  not 
precisely  belong  to  it.  Its  interests  are  too  engrossing ;  its 
excitements  too  keen  ;  it  modifies  the  fancy,  and  in  the 
change  unfits  it  for  everything  else.  Something,  too,  in 
Scott's  character  and  history  made  it  more  difficult  for  him 
to  give  a  representation  of  women  than  of  men.  Goethe 
used  to  say,  that  his  idea  of  woman  was  not  drawn  from 
his  experience,  but  that  it  came  to  him  before  experience, 
and  that  he  explained  his  experience  by  a  reference  to 
it.1  And  though  this  is  a  German,  and  not  very  happy, 
form  of  expression,  yet  it  appears  to  indicate  a  very  im- 

1  Conversations  with  Eckermann  and  Soret,  22nd  Oct.,  1828. 


The  Waverley  Novels.  117 

portant  distinction.  Some  efforts  of  the  imagination  are 
made  so  early  in  life,  just  as  it  were  at  the  dawn  of  the 
conscious  faculties,  that  we  are  never  able  to  fancy  our- 
selves as  destitute  of  them.  They  are  part  of  the  mental 
constitution  with  which,  so  to  speak,  we  awoke  to  existence. 
These  are  always  far  more  firm,  vivid,  and  definite,  than 
any  other  images  of  our  fancy ;  and  we  apply  them,  half 
unconsciously,  to  any  facts  and  sentiments  and  actions 
which  may  occur  to  us  later  in  life,  whether  arising  from 
within  or  thrust  upon  us  from  the  outward  world.  Goethe 
doubtless  meant  that  the  idea  of  the  female  character  was 
to  him  one  of  these  first  elements  of  imagination ;  not  a 
thing  puzzled  out,  or  which  he  remembered  having  con- 
ceived, but  a  part  of  the  primitive  conceptions  which,  being 
coeval  with  his  memory,  seemed  inseparable  from  his  con- 
sciousness. The  descriptions  of  women  likely  to  be  given 
by  this  sort  of  imagination  will  probably  be  the  best  descrip- 
tions. A  mind  which  would  arrive  at  this  idea  of  the 
female  character  by  this  process,  and  so  early,  would  be 
one  obviously  of  more  than  usual  susceptibility.  The  early 
imagination  does  not  commonly  take  this  direction  ;  it 
thinks  most  of  horses  and  lances,  tournaments  and  knights; 
only  a  mind  with  an  unusual  and  instinctive  tendency  to 
this  kind  of  thought,  would  be  borne  thither  so  early  or 
so  effectually.  And  even  independently  of  this  probable 
peculiarity  of  the  individual,  the  primitive  imagination  in 
general  is  likely  to  be  the  most  accurate  which  men  can 
form  ;  not,  of  course,  of  the  external  manifestations  and 
detailed  manners,  but  of  the  inner  sentiment  and  char- 
acteristic feeling  of  women.  The  early  imagination  con- 
ceives what  it  does  conceive  very  justly;  fresh  from  the 
facts,  stirred  by  the  new  aspect  of  things,  undimmed  by  the 
daily  passage  of  constantly  forgotten  images,  not  misled  by 
the  irregular  analogies  of  a  dislocated  life, — the  early  mind 


n8  Literary  Studies. 


sees  what  it  does  see  w,ith  a  spirit  and  an  intentness  never 
given  to  it  again.  A  mind  like  Goethe's,  of  very  strong 
imagination,  aroused  at  the  earliest  age, — not  of  course  by 
passions,  but  by  an  unusual  strength  in  that  undefined  long- 
ing which  is  the  prelude  to  our  passions, — will  form  the 
best  idea  of  the  inmost  female  nature  which  masculine 
nature  can  form.  The  difference  is  evident  between  the 
characters  of  women  formed  by  Goethe's  imagination  or 
Shakespeare's,  and  those  formed  by  such  an  imagination  as 
that  of  Scott.  The  latter  seem  so  external.  We  have 
traits,  features,  manners ;  we  know  the  heroine  as  she 
appeared  in  the  street ;  in  some  degree  we  know  how  she 
talked,  but  we  never  know  how  she  felt— least  of  all  what  she 
was:  we  always  feel  there  is  a  world  behind,  unanalysed, 
unrepresented,  which  we  cannot  attain  to.  Such  a  character 
as  Margaret  in  "Faust"  is  known  to  us  to  the  very  soul;  so 
is  Imogen  ;  so  is  Ophelia.  Edith  Bellenden,  Flora  Mac- 
ivor,  Miss  Wardour,1  are  young  ladies  who,  we  are  told, 
were  good-looking,  and  well  dressed  (according  to  the  old 
fashion),  and  sensible ;  but  we  feel  we  know  but  very  little 
of  them,  and  they  do  not  haunt  our  imaginations.  The 
failure  of  Scott  in  this  line  of  art  is  more  conspicuous, 
because  he  had  not  in  any  remarkable  degree  the  later 
experience  of  female  detail,  with  which  some  minds  have 
endeavoured  to  supply  the  want  of  the  early  essential 
imagination,  and  which  Goethe  possessed  in  addition  to 
it.  It  was  rather  late,  according  to  his  biographer,  before 
Scott  set  up  for  a  "  squire  of  dames  "  ;  he  was  a  "  lame 
young  man,  very  enthusiastic  about  ballad  poetry";  he 
was  deeply  in  love  with  a  young  lady,  supposed  to  be  imagina- 
tively represented  by  Flora  Macivor,  but  he  was  unsuccessful. 
It  would  be  over-ingenious  to  argue,  from  his  failing  in  a 
single  love-affair,  that  he  had  no  peculiar  interest  in  young 
1  In  Old  Mortality,  Waverley  and  The  Antiquary. 


The  Waverley  Novels.  119 

ladies  in  general ;  but  the  whole  description  of  his  youth  shows 
that  young  ladies  exercised  over  him  a  rather  more  divided 
influence  than  is  usual.  Other  pursuits  intervened,  much 
more  than  is  common  with  persons  of  the  imaginative 
temperament,  and  he  never  led  the  life  of  flirtation  from  which 
Goethe  believed  that  he  derived  so  much  instruction.  Scott's 
heroines,  therefore,  are,  not  unnaturally,  faulty,  since  from  a 
want  of  the  very  peculiar  instinctive  imagination  he  could  not 
give  us  the  essence  of  women,  and  from  the  habits  of  his  life 
he  could  not  delineate  to  us  their  detailed  life  with  the  appre- 
ciative accuracy  of  habitual  experience.  Jeanie  Deans  is 
probably  the  best  of  his  heroines,  and  she  is  so  because  she 
is  the  least  of  a  heroine.  The  plain  matter-of-fact  element  in 
the  peasant-girl's  life  and  circumstances  suited  a  robust 
imagination.  There  is  little  in  the  part  of  her  character  that 
is  very  finely  described  which  is  characteristically  feminine. 
She  is  not  a  masculine,  but  she  is  an  epicene  heroine.  Her 
love-affair  with  Butler,  a  single  remarkable  scene  excepted, 
is  rather  commonplace  than  otherwise. 

A  similar  criticism  might  be  applied  to  Scott's  heroes. 
Every  one  feels  how  commonplace  they  are — Waverley 
excepted,  whose  very  vacillation  gives  him  a  sort  of  character. 
They  have  little  personality.  They  are  all  of  the  same  type; 
— excellent  young  men — rather  strong — able  to  ride  and  climb 
and  jump.  They  are  always  said  to  be  sensible,  and  bear  out 
the  character  by  being  not  unwilling  sometimes  to  talk 
platitudes.  But  we  know  nothing  of  their  inner  life.  They 
are  said  to  be  in  love ;  but  we  have  no  special  account  of  their 
individual  sentiments.  People  show  their  character  in  their 
love  more  than  in  anything  else.  These  young  gentlemen  all 
love  in  the  same  way — in  the  vague  commonplace  way  oi 
this  world.  We  have  no  sketch  or  dramatic  expression  of  the 
life  within.  Their  souls  are  quite  unknown  to  us.  If  there 
is  an  exception,  it  is  Edgar  Ravenswoocl.1  But  if  we  look 

1  In  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor. 


I2O  Literary  Studies. 


closely,  we  may  observe  that  the  notion  which  we  obtain  ot 
his  character,  unusually  broad  as  it  is,  is  not  a  notion  of  him 
in  his  capacity  of  hero,  but  in  his  capacity  of  distressed  peer. 
His  proud  poverty  gives  a  distinctness  which  otherwise  his 
lineaments  would  not  have.  We  think  little  of  his  love ;  we 
think  much  of  his  narrow  circumstances  and  compressed 
haughtiness. 

The  same  exterior  delineation  of  character  shows  itself  in 
his  treatment  of  men's  religious  nature.  A  novelist  is  scarcely, 
in  the  notion  of  ordinary  readers,  bound  to  deal  with  this  at 
all ;  if  he  does,  it  will  be  one  of  his  great  difficulties  to  indicate 
it  graphically,  yet  without  dwelling  on  it.  Men  who  purchase 
a  novel  do  not  wish  a  stone  or  a  sermon.  All  lengthened  reflec- 
tions must  be  omitted ;  the  whole  armoury  of  pulpit  eloquence. 
But  no  delineation  of  human  nature  can  be  considered  complete 
which  omits  to  deal  with  man  in  relation  to  the  questions 
which  occupy  him  as  man,  with  his  convictions  as  to  the 
theory  of  the  universe  and  his  own  destiny  ;  the  human  heart 
throbs  on  few  subjects  with  a  passion  so  intense,  so  peculiar, 
and  so  typical.  From  an  artistic  view,  it  is  a  blunder  to  omit 
an  element  which  is  so  characteristic  of  human  life,  which 
contributes  so  much  to  its  animation,  and  which  is  so  pictur- 
esque. A  reader  of  a  more  simple  mind,  little  apt  to  indulge 
in  such  criticism,  feels  "  a  want  of  depth,"  as  he  would  speak, 
in  delineations  from  which  so  large  an  element  of  his  own 
most  passionate  and  deepest  nature  is  omitted.  It  can 
hardly  be  said  that  there  is  an  omission  of  the  religious 
nature  in  Scott.  But,  at  the  same  time,  there  is  no  adequate 
delineation  of  it.  If  we  refer  to  the  facts  of  his  life,  and  the 
view  of  his  character  which  we  collect  from  them,  we  shall 
find  that  his  religion  was  of  a  qualified  and  double  sort. 
He  was  a  genial  man  of  the  world,  and  had  the  easy  faith 
in  the  kindly1  Dieu  des  bonnes  gens,  which  is  natural  to 
1  Beranger. 


The  Waver  ley  Novels.  121 

such  a  person ;  and  he  had  also  a  half-poetic  principle  of 
superstition  in  his  nature,  inclining  him  to  believe  in  ghosts, 
legends,  fairies,  and  elves,  which  did   not  affect  his  daily 
life,  or  possibly  his  superficial  belief,  but  was  nevertheless 
very  constantly  present  to  his  fancy,  and  which  affected,  as 
is  the  constitution  of  human  nature,  through  that  frequency, 
the  undefined,  half-expressed,  inexpressible  feelings  which 
are  at  the  root  of  that  belief.     Superstition  was  a  kind  of 
Jacobitism  in  his  religion ;  as  a  sort  of  absurd  reliance  on 
the  hereditary   principle    modified   insensibly   his  leanings 
in  the  practical  world,  so  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  un- 
evidenced,  and  often  absurd,  supernatural  beings  qualified 
his  commonest   speculations   on  the   higher  world.     Both 
these  elements  may  be  thought  to  enter  into  the  highest 
religion ;    there   is  a   principle   of  cheerfulness  which  will 
justify   in    its   measure   a    genial    enjoyment,    and   also   a 
principle  of  fear  which  those  who  think  only  of  that  enjoy- 
ment will  deem  superstition,  and  which  will  really  become 
superstition  in  the  over-anxious  and  credulous  acceptor  of  it. 
But  in  a  true  religion  these  two  elements  will  be  combined. 
The  character  of  God  images  itself  very  imperfectly  in  any 
human  soul ;  but  in  the  highest  it  images  itself  as  a  whole ; 
it  leaves  an  abiding  impression  which  will  justify  anxiety  and 
allow  of  happiness.  The  highest  aim  of  the  religious  novelist 
would  be  to  show  how  this  operates  in  human  character ;  to 
exhibit  in  their  curious  modification  our  religious  love,  and 
also  our  religious  fear.     In   the   novels  of  Scott  the  two 
elements  appear  in  a  state  of  separation,  as  they  did  in  his 
own  mind.     We  have  the  superstition  of  the  peasantry  in 
The  Antiquary,  in  Guy  Manner  ing,  everywhere  almost ;  we 
have   likewise   a   pervading  tone  of   genial  easy  reflection 
characteristic  of  the  man  of  the  world  who  produced,  and 
agreeable  to  the  people  of  the  world  who  read,  these  works. 
But  we  have  no  picture  of  the  two  in  combination.    We  are 


122  Literary  Studies. 


scarcely  led  to  think  on  the  subject  at  all,  so  much  do  other 
subjects  distract  our  interest ;  but  if  we  do  think,  we  are 
puzzled  at  the  contrast.  We  do  not  know  which  is  true, 
the  uneasy  belief  of  superstition,  or  the  easy  satisfaction  of 
the  world  ;  we  waver  between  the  two,  and  have  no  sugges- 
tion even  hinted  to  us  of  the  possibility  of  a  reconciliation. 
The  character  of  the  Puritans  certainly  did  not  in  general 
embody  such  a  reconciliation,  but  it  might  have  been  made 
by  a  sympathising  artist  the  vehicle  for  a  delineation  of  a 
struggle  after  it.  The  two  elements  of  love  and  fear  ranked 
side  by  side  in  their  minds  with  an  intensity  which  is  rare 
even  in  minds  that  feel  only  one  of  them.  The  delineation 
of  Scott  is  amusing,  but  superficial.  He  caught  the  ludicrous 
traits  which  tempt  the  mirthful  imagination,  but  no  other 
side  of  the  character  pleased  him.  The  man  of  the  world 
was  displeased  with  their  obstinate  interfering  zeal ;  their 
intensity  of  faith  was  an  opposition  force  in  the  old  Scotch 
polity,  of  which  he  liked  to  fancy  the  harmonious  working. 
They  were  superstitious  enough ;  but  nobody  likes  other 
people's  superstitions.  Scott's  were  of  a  wholly  different 
kind.  He  made  no  difficulty  as  to  the  observance  of 
Christmas  Day,  and  would  have  eaten  potatoes  without  the 
faintest  scruple,  although  their  name  does  not  occur  in 
Scripture.  Doubtless  also  his  residence  in  the  land  of 
Puritanism  did  not  incline  him  to  give  anything  except  a 
satirical  representation  of  that  belief.  You  must  not  expect 
from  a  Dissenter  a  faithful  appreciation  of  the  creed  from 
which  he  dissents.  You  cannot  be  impartial  on  the  religion 
of  the  place  in  which  you  live ;  you  may  believe  it,  or  you 
may  dislike  it ;  it  crosses  your  path  in  too  many  forms  for 
you  to  be  able  to  look  at  it  with  equanimity.  Scott  had 
rather  a  rigid  form  of  Puritanism  forced  upon  him  in  his 
infancy ;  it  is  asking  too  much  to  expect  him  to  be  partial 
to  it.  The  aspect  of  religion  which  Scott  delineates  best  is 


The  Waver  ley  Novels.  123 


that  which  appears  in  griefs,  especially  in  the  grief  of  strong 
characters.  His  strong  natural  nature  felt  the  power  of 
death.  He  has  given  us  many  pictures  of  rude  and  simple 
men  subdued,  if  only  for  a  moment,  into  devotion  by  its 
presence. 

On  the  whole,  and  speaking  roughly,  these  defects  in  the 
delineation  which  Scott  has  given  us  of  human  life  are  but 
two.  He  omits  to  give  us  a  delineation  of  the  soul.  We 
have  mind,  manners,  animation,  but  it  is  the  stir  of  this 
world.  We  miss  the  consecrating  power  ;  and  we  miss  it  not 
only  in  its  own  peculiar  sphere,  which,  from  the  difficulty  of 
introducing  the  deepest  elements  into  a  novel,  would  have 
been  scarcely  matter  for  a  harsh  criticism,  but  in  the  place 
in  which  a  novelist  might  most  be  expected  to  delineate  it. 
There  are  perhaps  such  things  as  the  love-affairs  of  immortal 
beings,  but  no  one  would  learn  it  from  Scott.  His  heroes 
and  heroines  are  well  dressed  for  this  world,  but  not  for 
another ;  there  is  nothing  even  in  their  love  which  is  suitable 
for  immortality.  As  has  been  noticed,  Scott  also  omits 
any  delineation  of  the  abstract  side  of  unworldly  intellect. 
This  too  might  not  have  been  so  severe  a  reproach,  consider- 
ing its  undramatic,  unanimated  nature,  if  it  had  stood  alone  ; 
but  taken  in  connection  with  the  omission  which  we  have 
just  spoken  of,  it  is  most  important.  As  the  union  of  sense 
and  romance  makes  the  world  of  Scott  so  characteristically 
agreeable, — a  fascinating  picture  of  this  world  in  the  light 
in  which  we  like  best  to  dwell  on  it ;  so  the  deficiency  in 
the  attenuated,  striving  intellect,  as  well  as  in  the  super- 
natural soul,  gives  to  the  "  world  "  of  Scott  the  cumbrousness 
and  temporality — in  short,  the  materialism — which  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  world. 

We  have  dwelt  so  much  on  what  we  think  are  the  char- 
acteristic features  of  Scott's  imaginative  representations 
that  we  have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  criticise  the  two  most 


124  Literary  Studies. 


natural  points  of  criticism  in  a  novelist — plot  and  style. 
This  is  not,  however,  so  important  in  Scott's  case  as  it 
would  commonly  be.  He  used  to  say :  "  It  is  of  no  use 
having  a  plot;  you  cannot  keep  to  it".  He  modified 
and  changed  his  thread  of  story  from  day  to  day, — some- 
times even  from  bookselling  reasons,  and  on  the  suggestion 
of  others.  An  elaborate  work  of  narrative  art  could  not  be 
produced  in  this  way,  every  one  will  concede ;  the  highest 
imagination,  able  to  look  far  over  the  work,  is  necessary  for 
that  task.  But  the  plots  produced,  so  to  say,  by  the  pen  of 
the  writer  as  he  passes  over  the  events,  are  likely  to  have  a 
freshness  and  a  suitableness  to  those  events,  which  is  not 
possessed  by  the  inferior  writers  who  make  up  a  mechanical 
plot  before  they  commence.  The  procedure  of  the  highest 
genius  doubtless  is  scarcely  a  procedure  :  the  view  of  the 
whole  story  comes  at  once  upon  its  imagination  like  the 
delicate  end  and  the  distinct  beginning  of  some  long  vista. 
But  all  minds  do  not  possess  the  highest  mode  of  conception  ; 
and  among  lower  modes,  it  is  doubtless  better  to  possess 
the  vigorous  fancy  which  creates  each  separate  scene  in 
succession  as  it  goes,  than  the  pedantic  intellect  which 
designs  everything  long  before  it  is  wanted.  There  is  a 
play  in  unconscious  creation  which  no  voluntary  elaboration 
and  preconceived  fitting  of  distinct  ideas  can  ever  hope  to 
produce.  If  the  whole  cannot  be  created  by  one  bounding 
effort,  it  is  better  that  each  part  should  be  created  separately 
and  in  detail. 

The  style  of  Scott  would  deserve  the  highest  praise  if 
M.  Thiers  could  establish  his  theory  of  narrative  language. 
He  maintains  that  a  historian's  language  approaches 
perfection  in  proportion  as  it  aptly  communicates  what  is 
meant  to  be  narrated  without  drawing  any  attention  to 
itself.  Scott's  style  fulfils  this  condition.  Nobody  rises 
from  his  works  without  a  most  vivid  idea  of  what  is  related, 


The  Waverley  Novels.  125 

and  no  one  is  able  to  quote  a  single  phrase  in  which  it  has 
been  narrated.  We  are  inclined,  however,  to  differ  from 
the  great  French  historian,  and  to  oppose  to  him  a  theory 
derived  from  a  very  different  writer.  Coleridge  used  to 
maintain  that  all  good  poetry  was  untranslatable  into  words 
of  the  same  language  without  injury  to  the  sense:  the 
meaning  was,  in  his  view,  to  be  so  inseparably  intertwined 
even  with  the  shades  of  the  language,  that  the  change  of 
a  single  expression  would  make  a  difference  in  the  accom- 
panying feeling,  if  not  in  the  bare  signification :  con- 
sequently, all  good  poetry  must  be  remembered  exactly, — 
to  change  a  word  is  to  modify  the  essence.  Rigidly  this 
theory  can  only  be  applied  to  a  few  kinds  of  poetry,  or 
special  passages  in  which  the  imagination  is  exerting  itself 
to  the  utmost,  and  collecting  from  the  whole  range  of 
associated  language  the  very  expressions  which  it  requires. 
The  highest  excitation  of  feeling  is  necessary  to  this 
peculiar  felicity  of  choice.  In  calmer  moments  the  mind 
has  either  a  less  choice,  or  less  acuteness  of  selective 
power.  Accordingly,  in  prose  it  would  be  absurd  to 
expect  any  such  nicety.  Still,  on  great  occasions  in 
imaginative  fiction,  there  should  be  passages  in  which 
the  words  seem  to  cleave  to  the  matter.  The  excite- 
ment is  as  great  as  in  poetry.  The  words  should  be- 
come part  of  the  sense.  They  should  attract  our  atten- 
tion, as  this  is  necessary  to  impress  them  on  the  memory ; 
but  they  should  not  in  so  doing  distract  attention  from  the 
meaning  conveyed.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  their  insepara- 
bility from  their  meaning  which  gives  them  their  charm 
and  their  power.  In  truth,  Scott's  language,  like  his 
sense,  was  such  as  became  a  bold,  sagacious  man  of  the 
world.  He  used  the  first  sufficient  words  which  came 
uppermost,  and  seems  hardly  to  have  been  sensible,  even 
in  the  works  of  others,  of  that  exquisite  accuracy  and 


126  Literary  Studies. 


inexplicable    appropriateness    of    which     we     have     been 
speaking. 

To  analyse  in  detail  the  faults  and  merits  of  even  a  few 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Waverley  Novels  would  be  impossible 
in  the  space  at  our  command  on  the  present  occasion. 
We  have  only  attempted  a  general  account  of  a  few  main 
characteristics.  Every  critic  must,  however,  regret  to  have 
to  leave  topics  so  tempting  to  remark  upon  as  many  of 
Scott's  stories,  and  a  yet  greater  number  of  his  characters. 


127 


CHARLES  DICKENS.1 

(1858.) 

IT  must  give  Mr.  Dickens  much  pleasure  to  look  at  the 
collected  series  of  his  writings.  He  has  told  us  of  the 
beginnings  of  Pickwick. 

"  I  was,"  he  relates  in  what  is  now  the  preface  to  that  work,  "  a 
young  man  of  three  and  twenty,  when  the  present  publishers,  attracted 
by  some  pieces  I  was  at  that  time  writing  in  the  Morning  Chronicle 
newspaper  (of  which  one  series  had  lately  been  collected  and  published 
in  two  volumes,  illustrated  by  my  esteemed  friend  Mr.  George 
Cruikshank),  waited  upon  me  to  propose  a  something  that  should  be 
published  in  shilling  numbers — then  only  known  to  me,  or  I  believe 
to  anybody  else,  by  a  dim  recollection  of  certain  interminable  novels 
in  that  form,  which  used,  some  five  and  twenty  years  ago,  to  be  carried 
about  the  country  by  pedlars,  and  over  some  of  which  I  remember  to 
have  shed  innumerable  tears,  before  I  served  my  apprenticeship  to  Life. 
When  I  opened  my  door  in  Furnival's  Inn  to  the  managing  partner  who 
represented  the  firm,  I  recognised  in  him  the  person  from  whose  hands 
I  had  bought,  two  or  three  years  previously,  and  whom  I  had  never  seen 
before  or  since,  my  first  copy  of  the  magazine  in  which  my  first 
effusion — dropped  stealthily  one  evening  at  twilight,  with  fear  and 
trembling,  into  a  dark  letter-box,  in  a  dark  office,  up  a  dark  court  in 
Fleet  Street — appeared  in  all  the  glory  of  print ;  on  which  occasion,  by- 
the-bye, — how  well  I  recollect  it ! — I  walked  down  to  Westminster  Hall, 
and  turned  into  it  for  half  an  hour,  because  my  eyes  were  so  dimmed 
with  joy  and  pride,  that  they  could  not  bear  the  street,  and  were  not 
fit  to  be  seen  there.  I  told  my  visitor  of  the  coincidence,  which  we 
both  hailed  as  a  good  omen ;  and  so  fell  to  business." 

i  Cheap  Edition  of  the  Works  of  Charles  Dickens.  The  Pickwick 
Papers,  Nicholas  Nickleby,  etc.  London,  1857-8.  Chapman  and  Hall. 


128  Literary  Studies. 


After  such  a  beginning,  there  must  be  great  enjoyment  in 
looking  at  the  long  series  of  closely  printed  green  volumes, 
in  remembering  their  marvellous  popularity,  in  knowing 
that  they  are  a  familiar  literature  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken, — that  they  are  read  with  admiring 
appreciation  by  persons  of  the  highest  culture  at  the 
centre  of  civilisation, — that  they  amuse,  and  are  fit  to 
amuse,  the  roughest  settler  in  Vancouver's  Island. 

The  penetrating  power  of  this  remarkable  genius  among 
all  classes  at  home  is  not  inferior  to  its  diffusive  energy 
abroad.  The  phrase  "  household  book  "  has,  when  applied 
to  the  works  of  Mr.  Dickens,  a  peculiar  propriety.  There 
is  no  contemporary  English  writer,  whose  works  are  read  so 
generally  through  the  whole  house,  who  can  give  pleasure  to 
the  servants  as  well  as  to  the  mistress,  to  the  children  as  well 
as  to  the  master.  Mr.  Thackeray  without  doubt  exercises 
a  more  potent  and  plastic  fascination  within  his  sphere,  but 
that  sphere  is  limited.  It  is  restricted  to  that  part  of  the 
middle  class  which  gazes  inquisitively  at  the  "  Vanity  Fair" 
world.  The  delicate  touches  of  our  great  satirist  have,  for 
such  readers,  not  only  the  charm  of  wit,  but  likewise  the 
interest  of  valuable  information  ;  he  tells  them  of  the  topics 
which  they  want  to  know.  But  below  this  class  there  is 
another  and  far  larger,  which  is  incapable  of  comprehending 
the  idling  world,  or  of  appreciating  the  accuracy  of  delinea- 
tions drawn  from  it, — which  would  not  know  the  difference 
between  a  picture  of  Grosvenor  Square  by  Mr.  Thackeray 

End   the   picture  of  it  in  a    Minerva-Press   novel, — which 
nly  cares  for  or  knows  of  its  own  multifarious,  industrial, 
g-selling  world, — and   over  these   also   Mr.   Dickens   has 
power. 

It  cannot  be  amiss  to  take  this  opportunity  of  investi- 
gating, even  slightly,  the  causes  of  so  great  a  popularity. 
And  if,  in  the  course  of  our  article,  we  may  seem  to  be 


Charles  Dickens.  129 


ready  with  over-refining  criticism,  or  to  be  unduly  captious 
with  theoretical  objections,  we  hope  not  to  forget  that  so 
great  and  so  diffused  an  influence  is  a  datum  for  literary 
investigation, — that  books  which  have  been  thus  tried  upon 
mankind  and  have  thus  succeeded,  must  be  books  of  im- 
mense genius, — and  that  it  is  our  duty  as  critics  to  explain, 
as  far  as  we  can,  the  nature  and  the  limits  of  that 
genius,  but  never  for  one  moment  to  deny  or  question  its 
existence. 

Men  of  genius  may  be  divided  into  regular  and  irregular. 
Certain  minds,  the  moment  we  think  of  them,  suggest  to 
us  the  ideas  of  symmetry  and  proportion.  Plato's  name, 
for  example,  calls  up  at  once  the  impression  of  something 
ordered,  measured,  and  settled :  it  is  the  exact  contrary 
of  everything  eccentric,  immature,  or  undeveloped.  The 
opinions  of  such  a  mind  are  often  erroneous,  and  some  of 
them  may,  from  change  of  time,  of  intellectual  data,  or  from 
chance,  seem  not  to  be  quite  worthy  of  it ;  but  the  mode  in 
which  those  opinions  are  expressed,  and  (as  far  as  we  can 
make  it  out)  the  mode  in  which  they  are  framed,  affect  us, 
as  we  have  said,  with  a  sensation  of  symmetricalness.  It 
is  not  very  easy  to  define  exactly  to  what  peculiar  internal 
characteristic  this  external  effect  is  due :  the  feeling  is 
distinct,  but  the  cause  is  obscure ;  it  lies  hid  in  the  peculiar 
constitution  of  great  minds,  and  we  should  not  wonder  that 
it  is  not  very  easy  either  to  conceive  or  to  describe.  On 
the  whole,  however,  the  effect  seems  to  be  produced  by  a 
peculiar  proportionateness,  in  each  instance,  of  the  mind  to 
the  tasks  which  it  undertakes,  amid  which  we  see  it,  and 
by  which  we  measure  it.  Thus  we  feel  that  the  powers  and 
tendencies  of  Plato's  mind  and  nature  were  more  fit  than 
those  of  any  other  philosopher  for  the  due  consideration 
and  exposition  of  the  highest  problems  of  philosophy,  of 
the  doubts  and  difficulties  which  concern  man  as  man.  His 
VOL.  ii.  9 


130  Literary  Studies. 


genius  was  adapted  to  its  element ;  any  change  would  mar 
the  delicacy  of  the  thought,  or  the  polished  accuracy  of  the 
expression.  The  weapon  was  fitted  to  its  aim.  Every 
instance  of  proportionateness  does  not,  however,  lead  us 
to  attribute  this  peculiar  symmetry  to  the  whole  mind  we 
are  observing.  The  powers  must  not  only  be  suited  to  the 
task  undertaken,  but  the  task  itself  must  also  be  suited  to 
a  human  being,  and  employ  all  the  marvellous  faculties 
with  which  he  is  endowed.  The  neat  perfection  of  such  a 
mind  as  Talleyrand's  is  the  antithesis  to  the  symmetry  of 
genius ;  the  niceties  neither  of  diplomacy  nor  of  conversa- 
tion give  scope  to  the  entire  powers  of  a  great  nature.  We 
A  may  lay  down  as  the  condition  of  a  regular  or  symmetrical 
\genius,  that  it  should  have  the  exact  combination  of  powers 
suited  to  graceful  and  easy  success  in  an  exercise  of  mind 
great  enough  to  task  the  whole  intellectual  nature. 

On  the  other  hand,  men  of  irregular  or  unsymmetrical 
genius  are  eminent  either  for  some  one  or  some  few  pecu- 
liarities of  mind,  have  possibly  special  defects  on  other  sides 
of  their  intellectual  nature,  at  any  rate  want  what  the 
scientific  men  of  the  present  day  would  call  the  definite 
proportion  of  faculties  and  qualities  suited  to  the  exact  work 
they  have  in  hand.  The  foundation  of  many  criticisms  of 
Shakespeare  is,  that  he  is  deficient  in  this  peculiar  pro- 
portion. His  overteeming  imagination  gives  at  times, 
and  not  unfrequently,  a  great  feeling  of  irregularity ; 
there  seems  to  be  confusion.  We  have  the  tall  trees  of  the 
forest,  the  majestic  creations  of  the  highest  genius ;  but 
Vwe  have,  besides,  a  bushy  second  growth,  an  obtrusion  of 
Secondary  images  and  fancies,  which  prevent  our  taking 
an  exact  measure  of  such  grandeur.  We  have  not  the 
sensation  of  intense  simplicity,  which  must  probably  ac- 
company the  highest  conceivable  greatness.  Such  is  also 
the  basis  of  Mr.  Hallam's  criticism  on  Shakespeare's, 


Charles  Dickens.  131 


language, l  which  Mr.  Arnold  has  lately  revived. 2      "  His 
expression  is  often  faulty,"  because  his  illustrative  imagi- 
nation, somewhat  predominating  over  his  other  faculties, 
diffuses  about  the  main  expression  a  supplement  of  minor 
metaphors   which    sometimes   distract   the  comprehension, 
and   almost   always   deprive   his  style  of  the  charm   that 
arises  from  undeviating  directness.     Doubtless  this  is  an 
instance  of  the  very  highest  kind  of  irregular  genius,  in 
which  all  the  powers  exist  in  the  mind  in  a  very  high,  and 
almost  all  of  them  in  the  very  highest   measure,   but  ir 
which  from  a  slight  excess  in  a  single  one,  the  charm  o 
proportion  is  lessened.     The  most  ordinary  cases  of  irregu 
lar  genius  are  those  in  which  single  faculties  are  abnormally 
developed,  and  call  off  the  attention  from  all  the  rest  o 
the  mind  by  their  prominence  and  activity.     Literature,  as\ 
the  "  fragment  of  fragments,"  is  so  full  of  the  fragments  j 
of  such  minds  that  it  is  needless  to  specify  instances. 

Possibly  it  may  be  laid  down  that  one  of  two  elements 
is  essential  to  a  symmetrical  mind.  It  is  evident  that  such 
a  mind  must  either  apply  itself  to  that  which  is  theoretical 
or  that  which  is  practical,  to  the  world  of  abstraction  or  to 
the  world  of  objects  and  realities.  In  the  former  case  the 
deductive  understanding,  which  masters  first  principles, 
and  makes  deductions  from  them,  the  thin  ether  of  the 
intellect, — the  "  mind  itself  by  itself," — must  evidently 
assume  a  great  prominence.  To  attempt  to  comprehend 
principles  without  it,  is  to  try  to  swim  without  arms,  or  to 
fly  without  wings.  Accordingly,  in  the  mind  of  Plato, 
and  in  others  like  him,  the  abstract  and  deducing  under- 
standing fills  a  great  place ;  the  imagination  seems  a  kind 
of  eye  to  descry  its  data ;  the  artistic  instinct  an  arranging 
impulse,  which  sets  in  order  its  inferences  and  conclusions, 

1  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  ii.,  chap,  vi, 

2  Preface  to  Matthew  Arnold's  Poems. 


132  Literary  Studies. 


On  the  other  hand,  if  a  symmetrical  mind  busy  itself  with 
the  active  side  of  human  life,  with  the  world  of  concrete 
men  and  real  things,  its  principal  quality  will  be  a  practical 
sagacity,  which  forms  with  ease  a  distinct  view  and  just 
appreciation  of  all  the  mingled  objects  that  the  world  pre- 
sents,— which  allots  to  each  its  own  place,  and  its  intrinsic 
ind  appropriate  rank.  Possibly  no  mind  gives  such  an  idea 
kf  this  sort  of  symmetry  as  Chaucer's.  Everything  in  it  seems 
in  its  place.  A  healthy  sagacious  man  of  the  world  has  gone 
tnrough  the  world  ;  he  loves  it,  and  knows  it ;  he  dwells  on  it 
ith  fond  appreciation  ;  every  object  of  the  old  life  of  "  merry 
England  "  seems  to  fall  into  its  precise  niche  in  his  ordered  and 
symmetrical  comprehension.  The  prologue  to  the  Canterbury 
Tales  is  in  itself  a  series  of  memorial  tablets  to  mediaeval 
society ;  each  class  has  its  tomb,  and  each  its  apt  inscrip- 
tion. A  man  without  such  an  apprehensive  and  broad 
sagacity  must  fail  in  every  extensive  delineation  of  various 
life;  he  might  attempt  to  describe  what  he  did  not  pene- 
trate, or  if  by  a  rare  discretion  he  avoided  that  mistake,  his 
works  would  want  the  binding  element;  he  would  be  de- 
ficient in  that  distinct  sense  of  relation  and  combination 
which  is  necessary  for  the  depiction  of  the  whole  of  life, 
which  gives  to  it  unity  at  first,  and  imparts  to  it  a  mass  in 
the  memory  ever  afterwards.  And  eminence  in  one  or 
other  of  these  marking  faculties — either  in  the  deductive 
abstract  intplWt,  g^the  practical  seeing  sagacity — seems 
essential  to  the  mental  constitution  of  a  symmetrical  genius, 
at  least  in  man.  There  are,  after  all,  but  two  principal  all- 
» important  spheres  in  human  life — thought  and  action  ;  and 
t  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  masculine  mind  symmetrically 
\developed,  which  did  not  evince  its  symmetry  by  an  evident 
perfection  in  one  or  other  of  those  pursuits,  which  did  not 
leave  the  trace  of  its  distinct  reflection  upon  the  one,  or  of 
its  large  insight  upon  the  other  of  them.  Possibly  it  may  • 


Charles  Dickens.  133 


be  thought  that  in  the  sphere  of  pure  art  there  may  be  room 
for  a  symmetrical  development  different  from  these ;  but  it 
will  perhaps  be  found,  on  examination  of  such  cases,  either 
that  under  peculiar  and  appropriate  disguises  one  of  these 
great  qualities  is  present,  or  that  the  apparent  symmetry  is 
the  narrow  perfection  of  a  limited  nature,  which  may  be 
most  excellent  in  itself,  as  in  the  stricter  form  of  sacred 
art,  but  which,  as  we  explained,  is  quite  opposed  to  that 
broad  perfection  of  the  thinking  being,  to  which  we  have 
applied  the  name  of  the  symmetry  of  genius. 

If  this  classification  of  men  of  genius  be  admitted,  there 
can  be  no  hesitation  in  assigning  to  Mr.  Dickens  his  place 
in  it.  His  genius  is  essentially  irregular  and  unsym- 
metrical.  Hardly  any  English  writer  perhaps  is  much  more 
so.  His  style  is  an  example  of  it.  It  is  descriptive,  racy, 
and  flowing ;  it  is  instinct  with  new  imagery  and  singular 
illustration  ;  but  it  does  not  indicate  that  due  proportion  of 
the  faculties  to  one  another  which  is  a  beauty  in  itself,  and 
which  cannot  help  diffusing  beauty  over  every  happy  word 
and  moulded  clause.  We  may  choose  an  illustration  at 
random.  The  following  graphic  description  will  do  : — 

"  If  Lord  George  Gordon  had  appeared  in  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Willet, 
overnight,  a  nobleman  of  somewhat  quaint  and  odd  exterior,  the  im- 
pression was  confirmed  this  morning,  and  increased  a  hundred-fold 
Sitting  bolt  upright  upon  his  bony  steed,  with  his  long,  straight  hair 
dangling  about  his  face  and  fluttering  in  the  wind  ;  his  limbs  all  angular 
and  rigid,  his  elbows  stuck  out  on  either  side  ungracefully,  and  his  whole 
frame  jogged  and  shaken  at  every  motion  of  his  horse's  feet ;  a  more 
grotesque  or  more  ungainly  figure  can  hardly  be  conceived.  In  lieu  of 
whip,  he  carried  in  his  hand  a  great  gold-headed  cane,  as  large  as  any 
footman  carries  in  these  days ;  and  his  various  modes  of  holding  this 
unwieldy  weapon — now  upright  before  his  face  like  the  sabre  of  a  horse- 
soldier,  now  over  his  shoulder  like  a  musket,  now  between  his  finger  and 
thumb,  but  always  in  some  uncouth  and  awkward  fashion — contributed 
in  no  small  degree  to  the  absurdity  of  his  appearance.  Stiff,  lank,  and 
solemn,  dressed  in  an  unusual  manner,  and  ostentatiously  exhibiting — 


134  Literary  Studies. 


whether  by  design  or  accident — all  his  peculiarities  of  carriage,  gesture, 
and  conduct,  all  the  qualities,  natural  and  artificial,  in  which  he  differed 
from  other  men,  he  might  have  moved  the  sternest  looker-on  to  laughter, 
and  fully  provoked  the  smiles  and  whispered  jests  which  greeted  his 
departure  from  the  Maypole  Inn. 

"  Quite  unconscious,  however,  of  the  effect  he  produced,  he  trotted 
on  beside  his  secretary,  talking  to  himself  nearly  all  the  way,  until  they 
came  within  a  mile  or  two  of  London,  when  now  and  then  some  passenger 
went  by  who  knew  him  by  sight,  and  pointed  him  out  to  some  one  else, 
and  perhaps  stood  looking  after  him,  or  cried  in  jest  or  earnest  as  it  might 
be,  '  Hurrah,  Geordie  !  No  Popery  ! '  At  which  he  would  gravely  pull 
off  his  hat  and  bow.  When  they  reached  the  town  and  rode  along  the 
streets,  these  notices  became  more  frequent ;  some  laughed,  some 
hissed,  some  turned  their  heads  and  smiled,  some  wondered  who  he  was, 
some  ran  along  the  pavement  by  his  side  and  cheered.  When  this 
happened  in  a  crush  of  carts  and  chairs  and  coaches,  he  would  make  a 
dead  stop,  and  pulling  off  his  hat,  cry,  '  Gentlemen,  No  Popery  1 '  to 
which  the  gentlemen  would  respond  with  lusty  voices,  and  with  three 
times  three  ;  and  then  on  he  would  go  again  with  a  score  or  so  of  the 
raggedest  following  at  his  horse's  heels,  and  shouting  till  their  throats 
were  parched. 

"  The  old  ladies  too — there  were  a  great  many  old  ladies  in  the 
streets,  and  these  all  knew  him.  Some  of  them — not  those  of  the 
highest  rank,  but  such  as  sold  fruit  from  baskets  and  carried  burdens — 
clapped  their  shrivelled  hands,  and  raised  a  weazen,  piping,  shrill 
'  Hurrah,  my  lord '.  Others  waved  their  hands  or  handkerchiefs,  or  shook 
their  fans  or  parasols,  or  threw  up  windows,  and  called  in  haste  to  those 
within  to  come  and  see.  All  these  marks  of  popular  esteem  he  received 
with  profound  gravity  and  respect ;  bowing  very  low,  and  so  frequently 
that  his  hat  was  more  off  his  head  than  on  ;  and  looking  up  at  the  houses 
as  he  passed  along,  with  the  air  of  one  who  was  making  a  public  entry, 
and  yet  was  not  puffed-up  or  proud." 1 

No  one  would  think  of  citing  such  a  passage  as  this,  as 
exemplifying  the  proportioned  beauty  of  finished  writing ;  it 
is  not  the  writing  of  an  evenly  developed  or  of  a  highly 
cultured  mind  ;  it  abounds  in  jolts  and  odd  turns  ;  it  is  full 
of  singular  twists  and  needless  complexities :  but,  on  li.e 

1  Barnaby  Ritdgc,  chap,  xxxvii. 


Charles  Dickens.  135 


other  hand,  no  one  can  deny  its  great  and  peculiar  merit 
It  is  an  odd  style,  and  it  is  very  odd  how  much  you  re 
It  is  the  overflow  of  a  copious  mind,  though  not  the  chastened! 
expression  of  a  harmonious  one. 

The  same  quality  characterises  the  matter  of  his  works. 
His  range  is  very  varied.  He  has  attempted  to  describe 
every  kind  of  scene  in  English  life,  from  quite  the  lowest  to 
almost  the  highest.  He  has  not  endeavoured  to  secure 
success  by  confining  himself  to  a  single  path,  nor  wearied 
the  public  with  repetitions  of  the  subjects  by  the  delineation 
of  which  he  originally  obtained  fame.  In  his  earlier  works 
he  never  writes  long  without  saying  something  well  ;  some- 
thing which  no  other  man  would  have  said  ;  but  even  in 
them  it  is  the  characteristic  of  his  power  that  it  is  apt  to  fail 
him  at  once ;  from  masterly  strength  we  pass  without  interval 
to  almost  infantine  weakness,  —  something  like  disgus 
succeeds  in  a  moment  to  an  extreme  admiration.  Such  ii 
the  natural  fate  of  an  unequal  mind  employing  itself  on  < 
vast  and  variegated  subject.  In  writing  on  the  Waverlej 
Novels,  we  ventured  to  make  a  division  of  novels  into  the 
ubiquitous — it  would  have  been  perhaps  better  to  say  the 
miscellaneous — and  the  sentimental:  the  first,  as  its  name 
implies,  busying  itself  with  the  whole  of  human  life,  the 
second  restricting  itself  within  a  peculiar  and  limited  theme. 
Mr.  Dickens's  novels  are  all  of  the  former  class.  They  aim 
to  delineate  nearly  all  that  part  of  our  national  life  which 
can  be  delineated, — at  least,  within  the  limits  which  social 
morality  prescribes  to  social  art ;  but  you  cannot  read  his 
delineation  of  any  part  without  being  struck  with  its  singular 
incompleteness.  An  artist  once  said  of  the  best  work  of 
another  artist:  "Yes,  it  is  a  pretty  patch".  If  we  mighti 
venture  on  the  phrase,  we  should  say  that  Mr.  Dickens's 
pictures  are  graphic  scraps;  his  best  books  are  compilations 
of  them. 


136  Literary  Studies, 


The  truth  is,  that  Mr.  Dickens  wholly  wants  the  two 
elements  which  we  have  spoken  of,  as  one  or  other  requisite 
lor  a  symmetrical   genius.     He  is   utterly  deficient  in  the 
faculty  of  reasoning.     "  Mamma,  what  shall  I  think  about?" 
said  the  small  girl.     "  My  dear,  don't  think,"  was  the  old- 
fashioned  reply.     We  do  not  allege  that  in  the  strict  theory 
of  education  this  was  a  correct  reply ;  modern  writers  think 
otherwise ;    but   we   wish   some  one  would   say  it  to  Mr. 
Dickens.     He  is  often  troubled  with  the  idea  that  he  must 
reflect,  and  his  reflections  are  perhaps  the  worst  reading  in 
the  world.     There  is  a  sentimental  confusion  about  them  ; 
we  never  find  the  consecutive  precision  of  mature  theory,  or 
the  cold  distinctness  of  clear  thought.     Vivid  facts  stand 
out  in  his  imagination  ;  and  a  fresh  illustrative  style  brings 
ithem  home  to  the  imagination  of  his  readers ;  but  his  con- 
/-mnuous  philosophy  utterly  fails  in  the  attempt  to  harmonise 
\them, — to  educe  a  theory  or  elaborate  a  precept  from  them. 
Of  his  social  thinking  we  shall  have  a  few  words  to  say  in 
detail ;  his  didactic  humour  is  very  unfortunate  :  no  writer  is 
less  fitted  for  an  excursion  to  the  imperative  mood.     At 
present,  we  only  say,  what  is  so  obvious  as  scarcely  to  need 
saying,  that  his  abstract  understanding  is  so  far  inferior  to 
I  his  picturesque  imagination  as  to  give  even  to  his  best  works 
/  the  sense  of  jar  and  incompleteness,  and  to  deprive  them 
I  altogether  of  the  crystalline  finish  which  is  characteristic  of 
Lfhe  clear  and  cultured  understanding. 

Nor  has   Mr.   Dickens   the  easy   and   various    sagacity 

which,  as  has  been  said,  gives  a  unity  to  all  which  it  touches. 

/jHe  has,  indeed,  a  quality  which  is  near  allied  to  it  in  appear- 

'  ance.     His  shrewdness  in  some  things,  especially  in  traits 

and  small  things,  is  wonderful.     His  works  are  full  of  acute 

remarks  on  petty  doings,   and   well   exemplify    the   telling 

power  of  minute  circumstantiality.     But  the  minor  species 

of  perceptive  sharpness  is  so  different  from  diffused  sagacity, 


Charles  Dickens.  137 


that  the  two  scarcely  ever  are  to  be  found  in  the  same  mind. 
There  is  nothing  less  like  the  great  lawyer,  acquainted  with 
broad  principles  and  applying  them  with  distinct  deduction, 
than  the  attorney's  clerk  who  catches  at  small  points  like  a 
dog  biting  at  flies.  "  Over-sharpness  "  in  the  student  is  the 
most  unpromising  symptom  of  the  logical  jurist.  You  must 
not  ask  a  horse  in  blinkers  for  a  large  view  of  a  landscape. 
In  the  same  way,  a  detective  ingenuity  in  microscopic  detail 
is  of  all  mental  qualities  most  unlike  the  broad  sagacity  by 


i- 


which  the  great  painters  of  human  affairs  have  unintentip 
ally  stamped  the  mark  of  unity  on  their  productions.  They 
show  by  their  treatment  of  each  case  that  they  understar  d 
the  whole  of  life;  the  special  delineator  of  fragments  and 
points  shows  that  he  understands  them  only.  In  one  r<  - 
spect  the  defect  is  more  striking  in  Mr.  Dickens  than  in  any 
other  novelist  of  the  present  day.  The  most  remarkable  de- 
ficiency in  modern  fiction  is  its  omission  of  the  business  of 
life,  of  all  those  countless  occupations,  pursuits,  and  callings 
in  which  most  men  live  and  move,  and  by  which  they  have 
their  being.  In  most  novels  money  grows.  You  have  no 
idea  of  the  toil,  the  patience,  and  the  wearing  anxiety  by 
which  men  of  action  provide  for  the  day,  and  lay  up  for  the 
future,  and  support  those  that  are  given  into  their  care.  Mr. 
Dickens  is  not  chargeable  with  this  omission.  He  perpetu- 
ally deals  with  the  pecuniary  part  of  life.  Almost  all  his 
characters  have  determined  occupations,  of  which  he  is  apt 
to  talk  even  at  too  much  length.  When  he  rises  from  the 
toiling  to  the  luxurious  classes,  his  genius  in  most  cases 
deserts  him.  The  delicate  refinement  and  discriminating 
taste  of  the  idling  orders  are  not  in  his  way ;  he  knows  the 
dry  arches  of  London  Bridge  better  than  Belgravia.  He 
excels  in  inventories  of  poor  furniture,  and  is  learned  in 
pawnbrokers'  tickets.  But,  although  his  creative  power  lives 
and  works  among  the  middle  class  and  industrial  section  of 


138  Literary  Studies. 


English  society,  he  has  never  painted  the  highest  part  of 
their  daily  intellectual  life.  He  made,  indeed,  an  attempt  to 
paint  specimens  of  the  apt  and  able  man  of  business  in 
Nicholas  Nickleby ;  but  the  Messrs.  Cheeryble  are  among 
the  stupidest  of  his  characters.  He  forgot  that  breadth  of 
platitude  is  rather  different  from  breadth  of  sagacity.  His 
delineations  of  middle-class  life  have  in  consequence  a  harsh- 
ness and  meanness  which  do  not  belong  to  that  life  in  reality. 
omits  the  relieving  element.  He  describes  the  figs 

ich  are  sold,  but  not  the  talent  which  sells  figs  well.  And 
is  the  same  want  of  diffused  sagacity  in  his  own  nature 
hich  has  made  his  pictures  of  life  so  odd  and  disjointed, 
ajnd  which  has  deprived  them  of  symmetry  and  unity. 

The  bizarrerie  of  Mr.  Dickens's  genius  is  rendered  more 
remarkable  by  the  inordinate  measure  of  his  special  ex- 
cellences. The  first  of  these  is  his  power  of  observation  in 
detail.  We  have  heard, — we  do  not  know  whether  correctly 
or  incorrectly,— that  he  can  go  down  a  crowded  street,  and 
tell  you  all  that  is  in  it,  what  each  shop  was,  what  the 
grocer's  name  was,  how  many  scraps  of  orange-peel  there 
were  on  the  pavement.  His  works  give  you  exactly  the 
same  idea.  The  amount  of  detail  which  there  is  in  them  is 
something  amazing, — to  an  ordinary  writer  something  in- 
credible. There  are  single  pages  containing  telling  rninutice, 
which  other  people  would  have  thought  enough  for  a  volume. 
Nor  is  his  sensibility  to  external  objects,  though  omnivorous, 
.insensible  to  the  artistic  effect  of  each.  There  are  scarcely 
mywhere  such  pictures  of  London  as  he  draws.  No  writer 
las  equally  comprehended  the  artistic  material  which  is 
nven  by  its  extent,  its  aggregation  of  different  elements,  its 
noujdiness,  its  brilliancy. 

Nor  does  his  genius — though,  from  some  idiosyncrasy  of 
mind  or  accident  of  external  situation,  it  is  more  especially 
directed  to  city  life — at  all  stop  at  the  city  wall.  He  is 


Charles  Dickens. 


especially  at  home  in  the  picturesque  and  obvious  parts 
of  country  life,  particularly  in  the  comfortable  and  (so  to 
say)  mouldering  portion  of  it.  The  following  is  an  instance ; 
if  not  the  best  that  could  be  cited,  still  one  of  the  best : — 

"  They  arranged  to  proceed  upon  their  journey  next  evening,  as  a 
stage-waggon,  which  travelled  for  some  distance  on  the  same  road  as 
they  must  take,  would  stop  at  the  inn  to  change  horses,  and  the  driver 
for  a  small  gratuity  would  give  Nell  a  place  inside.  A  bargain  was 
soon  struck  when  the  waggon  came ;  and  in  due  time  it  rolled  away ; 
with  the  child  comfortably  bestowed  among  the  softer  packages,  her 
grandfather  and  the  schoolmaster  walking  on  beside  the  driver,  and 
the  landlady  and  all  the  good  folks  of  the  inn  screaming  out  their  good 
wishes  and  farewells. 

"  What  a  soothing,  luxurious,  drowsy  way  of  travelling,  to  lie 
inside  that  slowly-moving  mountain,  listening  to  the  tinkling  of  the 
horses'  bells,  the  occasional  smacking  of  the  carter's  whip,  the  smooth 
rolling  of  the  great  broad  wheels,  the  rattle  of  the  harness,  the  cheery 
good-nights  of  passing  travellers  jogging  past  on  little  short-stepped 
horses — all  made  pleasantly  indistinct  by  the  thick  awning,  which 
seemed  made  for  lazy  listening  under,  till  one  fell  asleep !  The  very 
going  to  sleep,  still  with  an  indistinct  idea,  as  the  head  jogged  to  and 
fro  upon  the  pillow,  of  moving  onward  with  no  trouble  or  fatigue,  and 
hearing  all  these  sounds  like  dreamy  music,  lulling  to  the  senses — and 
the  slow  waking  up,  and  finding  one's  self  staring  out  through  the 
breezy  curtain  half-opened  in  the  front,  far  up  into  the  cold  bright  sky 
with  its  countless  stars,  and  downwards  at  the  driver's  lantern  dancing 
on  like  its  namesake  Jack  of  the  swamps  and  marshes,  and  sideways 
at  the  dark  grim  trees,  and  forward  at  the  long  bare  road  rising  up, 
up,  up,  until  it  stopped  abruptly  at  a  sharp  high  ridge  as  if  there  were 
no  more  road,  and  all  beyond  was  sky — and  the  stopping  at  the  inn  to 
bait,  and  being  helped  out,  and  going  into  a  room  with  fire  and  candles, 
and  winking  very  much,  and  being  agreeably  reminded  that  the  night 
was  cold,  and  anxious  for  very  comfort's  sake  to  think  it  colder  than 
it  was !  What  a  delicious  journey  was  that  journey  in  the  waggon  ! 

"  Then  the  going  on  again — so  fresh  at  first,  and  shortly  afterwards 
so  sleepy.  The  waking  from  a  sound  nap  as  the  mail  came  dashing 
past  like  a  highway  comet,  with  gleaming  lamps  and  rattling  hoofs, 
and  visions  of  a  guard  behind,  standing  up  to  keep  his  feet  warm,  and 
of  a  gentleman  in  a  fur  cap  opening  his  eyes  and  looking  wild  and 


140  LUcrary  Studies. 


stupefied — the  stopping  at  the  turnpike,  where  the  man  has  gone  to 
bed,  and  knocking  at  the  door  until  he  answered  with  a  smothered 
shout  from  under  the  bed-clothes  in  the  little  room  above,  where  the 
faint  light  was  burning,  and  presently  came  down,  night-capped  and 
shivering,  to  throw  the  gate  wide  open,  and  wish  all  waggons  off  the 
road  except  by  day.  The  cold  sharp  interval  between  night  and 
morning — the  distant  streak  of  light  widening  and  spreading,  and 
turning  from  grey  to  white,  and  from  white  to  yellow,  and  from 
yellow  to  burning  red — the  presence  of  day,  with  all  its  cheerfulness 
and  life — men  and  horses  at  the  plough — birds  in  the  trees  and 
hedges,  and  boys  in  solitary  fields  frightening  them  away  with  rattles. 
The  coming  to  a  town — people  busy  in  the  market ;  light  carts  and 
chaises  round  the  tavern  yard ;  tradesmen  standing  at  their  doors ; 
men  running  horses  up  and  down  the  street  for  sale ;  pigs  plunging 
and  grunting  in  the  dirty  distance,  getting  off  with  long  strings  at 
their  legs,  running  into  clean  chemists'  shops  and  being  dislodged  with 
brooms  by  'prentices ;  the  night-coach  changing  horses — the  passengers 
cheerless,  cold,  ugly,  and  discontented,  with  three  months'  growth  of 
hair  in  one  night — the  coachman  fresh  as  from  a  bandbox,  and  ex- 
quisitely beautiful  by  contrast: — so  much  bustle,  so  many  things  in 
motion,  such  a  variety  of  incidents — when  was  there  a  journey  with 
so  many  delights  as  that  journey  in  the  waggon  !  "  1 

Or,  as  a  relief  from  a  very  painful  series  of  accompanying 
characters,  it  is  pleasant  to  read  and  remember  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  fine  morning  on  which  Mr.  Jonas  Chuzzlewit 
does  not  reflect.  Mr.  Dickens  has,  however,  no  feeling 
analogous  to  the  nature-worship  of  some  other  recent  writers. 
There  is  nothing  Wordsworthian  in  his  bent ;  the  interpret- 
ing inspiration  (as  that  school  speak)  is  not  his.  Nor  has 

he  the  erudition   in  difficult  names  which   has  filled  some 
f 

[pages  in  late  novelists  with  mineralogy  and  botany.     His 
\descriptions  of  Nature  are  fresh  and  superficial ;   they  are 

net-eermonic  or  scientific. 

Nevertheless,  it  maybe  said  that  Mr.  Dickens's  genius  is 

especially  suited  to  the  delineation  of  city  life.     London  is 

1  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  chap.  xlvi. 


Charles  Dickens.  141 


like  a  newspaper.  Everything  is  there,  and  everything  is 
disconnected.  There  is  every  kind  of  person  in  some 
houses ;  but  there  is  no  more  connection  between  the 
houses  than  between  the  neighbours  in  the  lists  of  "  births, 
marriages,  and  deaths ".  As  we  change  from  the  broad 
leader  to  the  squalid  police  report,  we  pass  a  corner  and  we 
are  in  a  changed  world.  This  is  advantageous  to  Mr. 
Dickens's  genius.  His  memory  is  full  of  instances  of  old 
buildings  and  curious  people,  and  he  does  not  care  to  piece 
them  together.  On  the  contrary,  each  scene,  to  his  mind,/ 
is  a  separate  scene, — each  street  a  separate  street.  He  has, I 
too,  the  peculiar  alertness  of  observation  that  is  observable 
in  those  who  liveByit.  He  describes  London  like  a  speciaj 
correspondent  for  posterity. 

A  second  mojai\vonderful  special  faculty  which  Mr. 
Dickens  possesses  is  what  we  may  call  Vn&  ^j^jf  cation  ofW 
character,  or  rather  of  characteristics.  His  marvellous/ 
power  of  observation  has  been  exercised  upon  men  ami 
women  even  more  than  upon  town  or  country ;  and  the 
store  of  human  detail,  so  to  speak,  in  his  books  is  endless 
and  enormous.  The  boots  at  the  inn,  the  pickpockets  in 
the  street,  the  undertaker,  the  Mrs.  Gamp,  are  all  of  them 
at  his  disposal ;  he  knows  each  trait  and  incident,  and  he 
invests  them  with  a  kind  of  perfection  in  detail  which  in 
reality  they  do  not  possess.  He  has  a  very  peculiar  power 
of  taking  hold  of  some  particular  traits,  and  making  a  char- 
acter out  of  them.  He  is  especially  apt  to  incarnate  particular 
professions  in  this  way.  Many  of  his  people  never  speak 
without  some  allusion  to  their  occupation.  You  cannot 
separate  them  from  it.  Nor  does  the  writer  ever  separate 
them.  What  would  Mr.  Mould 1  be  if  not  an  undertaker  ? 
or  Mrs.  Gamp2  if  not  a  nurse?  or  Charley  Bates3  if  not  a 
pickpocket  ?  Not  only  is  human  nature  in  them  subdued  tc 
\  In  Martin  Chuzzlcwit.  "  Ibid.  3  jn  Oliver  Twist. 


142  Literary  Studies. 


what  it  works  in,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  nature  to  sub- 
ue ;  the  whole  character  is  the  idealisation  of  a  trade, 
d  is  not  in  fancy  or  thought  distinguishable  from  it. 
Accordingly,  of  necessity,  such  delineations  become  carica- 
ures.  We  do  not  in  general  contrast  them  with  reality; 
>ut  as  soon  as  we  do,  we  are  struck  with  the  monstrous 
exaggerations  which  they  present.  You  could  no  more 
fancy  Sam  Weller,  or  Mark  Tapley,  or  the  Artful  Dodger 1 
really  existing,  walking  about  among  common  ordinary  men 
and  women,  than  you  can  fancy  a  talking  duck  or  a  writing 
bear.  They  are  utterly  beyond  the  pale  of  ordinary  social 
intercourse.  We  suspect,  indeed,  that  Mr.  Dickens  does 
not  conceive  his  characters  to  himself  as  mixing  in  the 
society  he  mixes  in.  He  sees  people  in  the  street,  doing 
certain  things,  talking  in  a  certain  way,  and  his  fancy 
petrifies  them  in  the  act.  He  goes  on  fancying  hundreds 
of  reduplications  of  that  act  and  that  speech  ;  he  frames  an 
existence  in  which  there  is  nothing  else  but  that  aspect 
which  attracted  his  attention.  Sam  Weller  is  an  example. 
He  is  a  man-servant,  who  makes  a  peculiar  kind  of  jokes, 
and  is  wonderfully  felicitous  in  certain  similes.  You  see 
him  at  his  first  introduction  : — 

"  '  My  friend,'  said  the  thin  gentleman. 

"  '  You're  one  o'  the  advice  gratis  order,'  thought  Sam,  '  or  you 
wouldn't  be  so  werry  fond  o'  me  all  at  once.'  But  he  only  said — '  Well, 
sir?' 

" '  My  friend,'  said  the  thin  gentleman,  with  a  conciliatory  hem — 
'  have  you  got  many  people  stopping  here,  now  ?  Pretty  busy  ?  Eh  ? ' 

"  Sam  stole  a  look  at  the  inquirer.  He  was  a  little  high-dried  man, 
with  a  dark  squeezed-up  face,  and  small  restless  black  eyes,  that  kept 
winking  and  twinkling  on  each  side  of  his  little  inquisitive  nose,  as  if  they 
were  playing  a  perpetual  game  of  peep-bo  with  that  feature.  He  was 
dressed  all  in  black,  with  boots  as  shiny  as  his  eyes,  a  low  white  neck- 
cloth, and  a  clean  shirt  with  a  frill  to  it.  A  gold  watch-chain  and  seals 

1  In  the  Pickwick  Papers,  Martin  Chuzzlcwit  and  Oliver  Twist. 


Charles  Dickens.  143 


depended  from  his  fob.  He  carried  his  black  kid  gloves  in  his  hands,  not 
on  them  ;  and,  as  he  spoke,  thrust  his  wrists  beneath  his  coat-tails,  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  propounding  some  regular 
posers. 

"  '  Pretty  busy,  eh  ? '  said  the  little  man. 

" '  Oh,  werry  well,  sir,'  replied  Sam,  '  we  shan't  be  bankrupts,  and 
we  shan't  make  our  fort'ns.  We  eat  our  biled  mutton  without  capers, 
and  don't  care  for  horse-radish  wen  ve  can  get  beef.' 

"  '  Ah,'  said  the  little  man,  '  you're  a  wag,  ain't  you  ?  ' 
*  "'  My  eldest  brother  was  troubled  with  that  complaint,'  said  Sam, 
'  it  may  be  catching — I  used  to  sleep  with  him.' 

"  '  This  is  a  curious  old  house  of  yours,'  said  the  little  man,  looking 
round  him. 

"  '  If  you'd  sent  word  you  was  a-coming,  we'd  ha'  had  it  repaired,' 
replied  the  imperturbable  Sam. 

"  The  little  man  seemed  rather  baffled  by  these  several  repulses,  and 
a  short  consultation  took  place  between  him  and  the  two  plump  gentle- 
men. At  its  conclusion,  the  little  man  took  a  pinch  of  snuff  from  an 
oblong  silver  box,  and  was  apparently  on  the  point  of  renewing  the 
conversation,  when  one  of  the  plump  gentlemen,  who,  in  addition  to  a 
benevolent  countenance,  possessed  a  pair  of  spectacles  and  a  pair  of 
black  gaiters,  interfered— 

"' The  fact  of  the  matter  is,'  said  the  benevolent  gentleman,  'that 
my  friend  here '  (pointing  to  the  other  plump  gentleman)  '  will  give  you 
half  a  guinea,  if  you'll  answer  one  or  two  — 

"  '  Now,  my  dear  sir — my  dear  sir,'  said  the  little  man,  '  pray  allow 
me — my  dear  sir,  the  very  first  principle  to  be  observed  in  these  cases  is 
this :  if  you  place  a  matter  in  the  hands  of  a  professional  man,  you  must 
in  no  way  interfere  in  the  progress  of  the  business ;  you  must  repose 
implicit  confidence  in  him.  Really,  Mr. '  (he  turned  to  the  other  plump 
gentleman,  and  said) — '  I  forget  your  friend's  name.' 

"  'Pickwick,'  said  Mr.  Wardle,  for  it  was  no  other  than  that  jolly 
personage. 

" '  Ah,  Pickwick — really  Mr.  Pickwick,  my  dear  sir,  excuse  me — I 
shall  be  happy  to  receive  any  private  suggestions  of  yours,  as  arnicas 
curia,  but  you  must  see  the  impropriety  of  your  interfering  with  my 
conduct  in  this  case,  with  such  an  ad  cnptandinn  argument  as  the  offer  of 
half  a  guinea.  Really,  my  dear  sir,  really,'  and  the  little  man  took  an 
argumentative  pinch  of  snuff,  and  looked  very  profound. 

"  '  My  only  wish,  sir,'  said  Mr.  Pickwick,  '  was  to  bring  this  very 
unpleasant  matter  to  as  speedy  a  close  as  possible.' 


144  Literary  Studies. 


"  '  Quite  right — quite  right,"  said  the  little  man. 

" '  With  which  view,'  continued  Mr.  Pickwick, '  I  made  use  of  the 
argument  which  my  experience  of  men  has  taught  me  is  the  most  likely 
to  succeed  in  any  case.' 

"  '  Ay,  ay,'  said  the  little  man,  '  very  good,  very  good  indeed  ;  but 
you  should  have  suggested  it  to  me.  My  dear  sir,  I'm  quite  certain  you 
cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  extent  of  confidence  which  must  be  placed  in 
professional  men.  If  any  authority  can  be  necessary  on  such  a  point, 
my  dear  sir,  let  me  refer  you  to  the  well-known  case  in  Barnwell 
and ' 

"  '  Never  mind  George  Barnwell,'  interrupted  Sam,  who  had  re- 
mained a  wondering  listener  during  this  short  colloquy  ;  '  everybody 
knows  vat  sort  of  a  case  his  was,  tho'  it's  always  been  my  opinion,  mind 
you,  tnat  the  young  'ooman  deserved  scragging  a  precious  sight  more 
than  he  did.  Hows'ever,  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  You  want  me 
to  except  of  half  a  guinea.  Werry  well,  I'm  agreeable  :  I  can't  say  no 
fairer  than  that,  can  I,  sir  ? '  (Mr.  Pickwick  smiled.)  '  Then  the  next 
question  is,  what  the  devil  do  you  want  with  me  ?  as  the  man  said  wen 
he  see  the  ghost.' 

"  '  We  want  to  know '  said  Mr.  Wardle. 

" '  Now,  my  dear  sir — my  dear  sir,'  interposed  the  busy  little  man. 

"  Mr.  Wardle  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  was  silent. 

"  '  We  want  to  know,'  said  the  little  man  solemnly ;  '  and  we  ask  the 
question  of  you,  in  order  that  we  may  not  awaken  apprehensions  inside 
— we  want  to  know  who  you've  got  in  this  house  at  present.' 

"  '  Who  there  is  in  the  house ! '  said  Sam,  in  whose  mind  the  inmate* 
were  always  represented  by  that  particular  article  of  their  costume 
which  came  under  his  immediate  superintendence.  '  There's  a  wooden 
leg  in  number  six ;  there's  a  pair  of  Hessians  in  thirteen  ;  there's  two 
pair  of  halves  in  the  commercial ;  there's  these  here  painted  tops  in 
the  snuggery  inside  the  bar ;  and  five  more  tops  in  the  coffee-room." 

"  '  Nothing  more  ? '  said  the  little  man, 

"  '  Stop  a  bit,'  replied  Sam,  suddenly  recollecting  himself.  '  Yes ; 
there's  a  pair  of  Wellingtons  a  good  deal  worn,  and  a  pair  o'  lady's 
shoes,  in  number  five.' 

" '  What  sort  of  shoes  ? '  hastily  inquired  Wardle,  who,  together 
with  Mr.  Pickwick,  had  been  lost  in  bewilderment  at  the  singular 
catalogue  of  visitors. 

"  '  Country  make,'  replied  Sam, 

"  '  Any  maker's  name  ?  ' 

'"  Brown," 


Charles  Dickens.  145 


'"Where  of?' 

"  '  Muggleton.' 

"'It  is  them,'  exclaimed  Wardle;  'By  Heaverts,  we've  found 
them.' 

"  '  Hush ! '  said  Sam.  '  The  Wellingtons  has  gong  to  Doctors 
Commons.' 

"  '  No,'  said  the  little  man, 

"  '  Yes,  for  a  license.' 

"' We're  in  time,'  exclaimed  Wardle.  'Show  us  the  room;  not  a 
moment  is  to  be  lost.' 

"'  Pray,  my  dear  sir — pray,'  said  the  little  man  ;  '  caution,  caution.' 
He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  red  silk  purse,  and  looked  very  hard  at  Sam 
as  he  drew  out  a  sovereign. 

"  Sam  grinned  expressively. 

"  '  Show  us  into  the  room  at  once,  without  announcing  us,'  said  the 
little  man,  '  and  it's  yours.'  "  l 

One  can  fancy  Mr.  Dickens  hearing  a  dialogue  of  this 
sort, — not  nearly  so  good,  but  something  like  it, — and  im- 
mediately setting  to  work  to  make  it  better  and  put  it  in  a 
book ;  then  changing  a  little  the  situation,  putting  the  boots 
one  step  up  in  the  scale  of  service,  engaging  him  as  foot- 
man to  a  stout  gentleman  (but  without  for  a  moment  losing 
sight  of  the  peculiar  kind  of  professional  conversation  and 
humour  which  his  first  dialogue  presents),  and  astonishing 
all  his  readers  by  the  marvellous  fertility  and  magical 
humour  with  which  he  maintains  that  style.  Sam  Weller's 
father  is  even  a  stronger  and  simpler  instance.  He  is 
simply  nothing  but  an  old  coachman  of  the  stout  and  extinct 
sort :  you  cannot  separate  him  from  the  idea  of  that  occupa- 
tion. But  how  amusing  he  is !  We  dare  not  quote  a  single 
word  of  his  talk ;  because  we  should  go  on  quoting  so  long, 
and  every  one  knows  it  so  well.  Some  persons  may  think 
that  this  is  not  a  very  high  species  of  delineative  art.  The 
idea  of  personifying  traits  and  trades  may  seem  to  them  poor 
and  meagre.  Anybody,  they  may  fancy,  can  do  that.  But 

1  Pickwick  Papers,  chap.  ix. 
VOL.    II.  IO 


±46  Literary 


how  would  they  do  it  ?  Whose  fancy  would  not  break  down 
in  a  page — in  five  lines  ?  Who  can  carry  on  the  vivifica- 
tion  with  zest  and  energy  and  humour  for  volume  after 
volume  ?  Endless  fertility  in  laughter-causing  detail  is  Mr. 
Dickens's  most  astonishing  peculiarity.  It  requires  a  con- 
tinuous and  careful  reading  of  his  works  to  be  aware  of  his 
enormous  wealth.  Writers  have  attained  the  greatest  re- 
putation for  wit  and  humour,  whose  whole  works  do  not 
contain  so  much  of  either  as  are  to  be  found  in  a  very  few 
pages  of  his. 

jMr.  Dickens's  humour  is  indeed  very  much  a  result  of 
he  two  peculiarities  of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  His 
'Ower  of  detailed  observation  and  his  power  of  idealising 
ndividual  traits  of  character — sometimes  of  one  or  other  of 
hem,  sometimes  of  both  of  them  together.  His  similes  on 

atters  of  external  observation  are  so  admirable  that  every- 
ody  appreciates  them,  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  quote 
specimens  of  them  ;  nor  is  it  the  sort  of  excellence  which 
best  bears  to  be  paraded  for  the  purposes  of  critical  example. 
Its  off-hand  air  and  natural  connection  with  the  adjacent  cir- 
cumstances are  inherent  parts  of  its  peculiar  merit.  Every 
•eader  of  Mr.  Dickens's  works  knows  well  what  we  mean. 

nd  who  is  not  a  reader  of  them  ? 

But  his  peculiar  humour  is  even  more  indebted  to  his 
habit  of  vivifying  external  traits,  than  to  his  power  of  ex- 
ternal observation.  He,  as  we  have  explained,  expands 
:raits  into  people ;  and  it  is  a  source  of  true  humour  to 
Dlace  these,  when  so  expanded,  in  circumstances  in  which 
jnly  people — that  is  complete  human  beings — can  appro- 
Driately  act.  The  humour  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  character  is 
entirely  of  this  kind.  He  is  a  kind  of  incarnation  of  simple- 
jnindedness  and  what  we  may  call  obvious-mindedness. 
The  conclusion  which  each  occurrence  or  position  in  life 
most  immediately  presents  to  the  unsophisticated  mind  is 


Charles  Dickens. 


that  which  Mr.  Pickwick  is  sure  to  accept.  The  proper 
accompaniments  are  given  to  him.  He  is  a  stout  gentle- 
man in  easy  circumstances,  who  is  irritated  into  originality 
by  no  impulse  from  within,  and  by  no  stimulus  from 
without.  He  is  stated  to  have  "retired  from  business". 
But  no  one  can  fancy  what  he  was  in  business.  Such 
guileless  simplicity  of  heart  and  easy  impressibility  of 
disposition  would  soon  have  induced  a  painful  failure  amid 
the  harsh  struggles  and  the  tempting  speculations  of 
pecuniary  life.  As  he  is  represented  in  the  narrative,  how- 
ever, nobody  dreams  of  such  antecedents.  Mr.  Pickwick 
moves  easily  over  all  the  surface  of  English  life  from 
Goswell  Street  to  Dingley  Dell,  from  Dingley  Dell  to  the 
Ipswich  elections,  from  drinking  milk-punch  in  a  wheel- 
barrow to  sleeping  in  the  approximate  pound,  and  no  one 
ever  thinks  of  applying  to  him  the  ordinary  maxims  which 
we  should  apply  to  any  common  person  in  life,  or  to  any 
common  personage  in  a  fiction.  Nobody  thinks  it  is  wrong 
in  Mr.  Pickwick  to  drink  too  much  milk-punch  in  a  wheel- 
barrow, to  introduce  worthless  people  of  whom  he  knows 
nothing  to  the  families  of  people  for  whom  he  really  cares  ; 
nobody  holds  him  responsible  for  the  consequences  ;  nobody 
thinks  there  is  anything  wrong  in  his  taking  Mr.  Bob 
Sawyer  and  Mr.  Benjamin  Allen  to  visit  Mr.  Winkle,  senior, 
and  thereby  almost  irretrievably  offending  him  with  his 
son's  marriage.  We  do  not  reject  moral  remarks  such  as 
these,  but  they  never  occur  to  us.  Indeed,  the  indistinct 
consciousness  that  such  observations  are  possible,  and  that 
they  are  hovering  about  our  minds,  enhances  the  humour 
of  the  narrative.  We  are  in  a  conventional  world,  whera 
the  mere  maxims  of  common  life  do  not  apply,  and  yet\ 
which  has  all  the  amusing  detail,  and  picturesque  elements,  \ 
and  singular  eccentricities  of  common  life.  Mr.  Pickwick  is 
a  personified  ideal ;  a  kind  of  amateur  in  life,  whose  course 


148  Literary  Studies. 


we  watch  through  all  the  circumstances  of  ordinary  existence, 
and  at  whose  follies  we  are  amused  just  as  really  skillet! 
people  are  at  the  mistakes  of  an  amateur  in  their  art.  His 
being  in  the  pound  is  not  wrong ;  his  being  the  victim  of 
Messrs.  Dodson  is  not  foolish.  "  Always  shout  with  the 
mob,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick.  "  But  suppose  there  are  two 
mobs,"  said  Mr.  Snodgrass.  "Then  shout  with  the  loudest," 
said  Mr.  Pickwick.  This  is  not  in  him  weakness  or  time- 
serving, or  want  of  principle,  as  in  most  even  of  fictitious 
people  it  would  be.  It  is  his  way.  Mr.  Pickwick  was 
expected  to  say  something,  so  he  said  "  Ah  !  "  in  a  grave 
voice.  This  is  not  pompous  as  we  might  fancy,  or  clever 
as  it  might  be,  if  intentionally  devised;  it  ig-simply  his  way. 
Mr.  Pickwick  gets  late  at  night  over  the  wall  behind  the 
back-door  of  a  young-ladies'  school,  is  found  in  that 
sequestered  place  by  the  schoolmistress  and  the  boarders 
and  the  cook,  and  there  is  a  dialogue  between  them. 1  There 
is  nothing  out  of  possibility  in  this  ;  it  is  his  way.  The 
humour  essentially  consists  in  treating  as  a  moral  agent  a 
being  who  really  is  not  a  moral  agent.  We  treat  a  vivified 
abcident  as  a  man,  and  we  are  surprised  at  the  absurd  results. 
"We  are  reading  about  an  acting  thing,  and  we  wonder  at  its 
scrapes,  and  laugh  at  them  as  if  they  were  those  of  the  man. 
There  is  something  of  this  humour  in  every  sort  of  farce. 
Everybody  knows  these  are  not  real  beings  acting  in  real 
life,  though  they  talk  as  if  they  were,  and  want  us  to  believe 
that  they  are.  Here,  as  in  Mr.  Dickens's  books,  we  have 
exaggerations  pretending  to  comport  themselves  as  ordinary 
beings,  caricatures  acting  as  if  they  were  characters. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  essential  to  remember,  that  how- 
ever great  may  be  and  is  the  charm  of  such  exaggerated 
personifications,  the  best  specimens  of  them  are  immensely 
less  excellent,  belong  to  an  altogether  lower  range  of  intel- 

Chap.  xvi. 


Charles  Dickens.  149 


lectual  achievements,  than  the  real  depiction  of  actual  living 
men.     It  is  amusing  to  read  of  beings  out  of  the  laws  o 
morality,  but  it  is  more  profoundly  interesting,  as  well  a 
more  instructive,  to  read  of  those  whose  life  in  its  mora 
conditions  resembles  our  own.     We  see  this  most  distinctl; 
when  both  representations  are  given  by  the  genius  of  one  an< 
the  same  writer.      Falstaff  is  a  sort  of  sack-holding  paunch 
an  exaggerated  over-development  which  no  one  thinks  6 
holding  down  to  the  commonplace  rules  of  the  ten  command- 
ments and  the  statute-law.     We  do  not  think  of  them  in 
connection   with    him.      They    belong    to   a    world   apart. 
Accordingly,  we  are  vexed  when  the  king  discards  him  and 
reproves  him.     Such  a  fate  was   a  necessary  adherence  on 
Shakespeare's  part  to  the  historical  tradition ;  he  never  pro- 
bably thought  of  departing  from  it,  nor  would  his  audience 
have  perhaps  endured  his  doing  so.  But  to  those  who  look  at 
the  historical  plays  as  pure  works  of  imaginative  art,  it  seems 
certainly  an   artistic  misconception   to  have  developed    so 
marvellous  an  wwmoral  impersonation,  and  then  to  have  sub- 
jected it  to  an  ethical  and  punitive  judgment.  Still,  notwith- 
standing this  error,  which  was  very  likely  inevitable,  Falstaff 
is  probably  the  most  remarkable  specimen  of  caricature-repre- 
sentation to  be  found  in  literature.     And  its  very  excellence 
of  execution  only  shows  how  inferior  is  the  kind  of  art  which 
creates  only  such  representations.     Who  could  compare  the 
genius,  marvellous  as  must  be  its  fertility,  which  was  need- 
ful  to   create  a   Falstaff,  with  that   shown   in   the   higher 
productions  of  the  same  mind   in    Hamlet,    Ophelia,  and 
Lear  ?     We  feel  instantaneously  the  difference  between  the 
aggregating  accident  which  rakes  up  from  the  externalities 
of  life  other  accidents  analogous  to  itself,  and  the  central 
ideal  of  a  real  character  which  cannot  show  itself  wholly  in 
any  accidents,  but  which  exemplifies  itself  partially  in  many, 
\yhich  unfolds  itself  gradually  in  wide  spheres  of  action,  and 


150  Literary  Studies. 


yet,  as  with  those  we  know  best  in  life,  leaves  something 
hardly  to  be  understood,  and  after  years  of  familiarity  is  a 
problem  and  a  difficulty  to  the  last.  In  the  same  way,  the 
embodied  characteristics  and  grotesque  exaggerations  of  Mr. 
Dickens,  notwithstanding  all  their  humour  and  all  their 
marvellous  abundance,  can  never  be  for  a  moment  compared 
with  the  great  works  of  the  real  painters  of  essential  human 

Tature. 
There  is  one  class  of  Mr.  Dickens's  pictures  which  may 
seem  to  form  an  exception  to  this  criticism.  It  is  the  de- 
lineation of  the  outlaw,  we  might  say  the  anti-law,  world  in 
Oliver  Twist.  In  one  or  two  instances  Mr.  Dickens  has  . 
been  so  fortunate  as  to  hit  on  characteristics  which,  by  his 
system  of  idealisation  and  continual  repetition,  might  really 
be  brought  to  look  like  a  character.  A  man's  trade  or 
profession  in  regular  life  can  only  exhaust  a  very  small 
portion  of  his  nature  :  no  approach  is  made  to  the  essence 
of  humanity  by  the  exaggeration  of  the  traits  which  typify  a 
beadle  or  an  undertaker.  With  the  outlaw  world  it  is 
somewhat  different.  The  bare  fact  of  a  man  belonging  to 
the  world  is  so  important  to  his  nature,  that  if  it  is  artisti- 
cally developed  with  coherent  accessories,  some  approxima- 
tion to  a  distinctly  natural  character  will  be  almost  inevitably 
made.  In  the  characters  of  Bill  Sykes  and  Nancy  this  is 
so.  The  former  is  the  skulking  ruffian  who  may  be  seen 
any  day  at  the  police-courts,  and  whom  any  one  may  fancy 
e  sees  by  walking  through  St.  Giles's.  You  cannot  attempt 
o  figure  to  your  imagination  the  existence  of  such  a  person 
ithout  being  thrown  into  the  region  of  the  passions,  the 
ill,  and  the  conscience ;  the  mere  fact  of  his  maintaining, 
a  condition  of  life  and  by  settled  profession,  a  struggle 
with  regular  society,  necessarily  brings  these  deep  parts  of 
his  nature  into  prominence  ;  great  crime  usually  proceeds 
from  abnormal  impulses  or  strange  effort.  Accordingly, 


Charles  Dickens.  151 


Mr.  Sykes  is  the  character  most  approaching  to  a  coherent 
man  who  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  Dickens's  works.  We  do 
not  say  that  even  here  there  is  not  some  undue  heightening 
admixture  of  caricature, — but  this  defect  is  scarcely  thought 
of  amid  the  general  coherence  of  the  picture,  the  painful 
subject,  and  the  wonderful  command  of  strange  accessories. 
Miss  Nancy  is  a  still  more  delicate  artistic  effort.  She  is  a 
idealisation  of  the  girl  who  may  also  be  seen  at  the  po 
courts  and  St.  Giles's  ;  as  bad,  according  to  occupation  and 
common  character,  as  a  woman  can  be,  yet  retaining  a  tinge 
of  womanhood,  and  a  certain  compassion  for  interesting 
suffering,  which  under  favouring  circumstances  might  be  th 
germ  of  a  regenerating  influence.  We  need  not  stay  to 
prove  how  much  the  imaginative  development  of  such  a 
personage  must  concern  itself  with  our  deeper  humanity; 
how  strongly,  if  excellent,  it  must  be  contrasted  with  every- 
thing conventional  or  casual  or  superficial.  Mr.  Dickens's 
delineation  is  in  the  highest  degree  excellent.  It  possesses  not 
only  the  more  obvious  merits  belonging  to  the  subject, 
but  also  that  of  a  singular  delicacy  of  expression  and 
idea.  Nobody  fancies  for  a  moment  that  they  are  reading 
about  anything  beyond  the  pale  of  ordinary  propriety. 
We  read  the  account  of  the  life  which  Miss  Nancy  leads. 
with  Bill  Sykes  without  such  an  idea  occurring  to  us  ft 
yet  when  we  reflect  upon  it,  few  things  in  literary  paint 
ing  are  more  wonderful  than  the  depiction  of  a  profes 
sional  life  of  sin  and  sorrow,  so  as  not  even  to  startl : 
those  to  whom  the  deeper  forms  of  either  are  but  names  and 
shadows.  Other  writers  would  have  given  as  vivid  a  picture  : 
Defoe  would  have  poured  out  even  a  more  copious  measure 
of  telling  circumstantiality,  but  he  would  have  narrated  his 
story  with  an  inhuman  distinctness,  which  if  not  impure  is 
«»pure  ;  French  writers,  whom  we  need  not  name,  would 
have  enhanced  the  interest  of  their  narrative  by  trading  on 


152  Literary  Studies. 


the  excitement  of  stimulating  scenes.  It  would  be  injustice 
to  Mr.  Dickens  to  say  that  he  has  surmounted  these  temp- 
tations ;  the  unconscious  evidence  of  innumerable  details 
proves  that,  from  a  certain  delicacy  of  imagination  and  purity 
of  spirit,  he  has  not  even  experienced  them.  Criticism  is 
the  more  bound  to  dwell  at  length  on  the  merits  of  these 
delineations,  because  no  artistic  merit  can  make  Oliver  Twist 
a  pleasing  work.  The  squalid  detail  of  crime  and  misery 
oppresses  us  too  much.  If  it  is  to  be  read  at  all,  it  should 
be  read  in  the  first  hardness  of  the  youthful  imagination, 
which  no  touch  can  move  too  deeply,  and  which  is  never 
stirred  with  tremulous  suffering  at  the  "  still  sad  music  of 
humanity  ".I  The  coldest  critic  in  later  life  may  never  hope 
to  have  again  the  apathy  of  his  boyhood. 

It  perhaps  follows  from  what  has  been  said  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  Mr.  Dickens's  genius,  that  it  would  be  little  skilled 
in  planning  plots  for  his  novels.  He  certainly  is  not  so 
skilled.  He  says  in  his  preface  to  the  Pickwick  Papers 
"  that  they  were  designed  for  the  introduction  of  diverting 
characters  and  incidents ;  that  no  ingenuity  of  plot  was 
attempted,  or  even  at  that  time  considered  feasible  by  the 
author  in  connection  with  the  desultory  plan  of  publication 
adopted ;  "  and  he  adds  an  expression  of  regret  that  "  these 
chapters  had  not  been  strung  together  on  a  thread  of  more 
general  interest".  It  is  extremely  fortunate  that  no  such 
attempt  was  made.  In  the  cases  in  which  Mr.  Dickens  has 
attempted  to  make  a  long  connected  story,  or  to  develop  into 
s  cenes  or  incidents  a  plan  in  any  degree  elaborate,  the  result 

las  been  a  complete  failure.    A  certain  consistency  of  genius 

seems  necessary  for  the  construction  of  a  consecutive  plot. 

A.n  irregular  mind  naturally  shows  itself  in  incoherency  of 
h  incident  and  aberration  of  character.    The  method  in  which 

ftfrT  Dickens's  mind  works,  if  we  are  correct  in  our  criticism 
I  Wordsworth,  "  Tintern  Abbey  ". 


Charles  Dickens.  153 


upon  it,  tends  naturally  to  these  blemishes.  Caricatures  are 
necessarily  isolated  ;  they  are  produced  by  the  exaggeration 
of  certain  conspicuous  traits  and  features;  each  being  is 
enlarged  on  its  greatest  side ;  and  we  laugh  at  the  grotesque 
grouping  and  the  startling  contrast.  But  that  connection 
between  human  beings  on  which  a  plot  depends  is  rather 
severed  than  elucidated  by  the  enhancement  of  their  diversi- 
ties. Interesting  stories  are  founded  on  the  intimate  relations 
of  men  and  women.  These  intimate  relations  are  based  not 
on  their  superficial  traits,  or  common  occupations,  or  most 
visible  externalities,  but  on  the  inner  life  of  heart  and  feeling. 
You  simply  divert  attention  from  that  secret  life  by  enhanc- 
ing the  perceptible  diversities  of  common  human  nature, 
and  the  strange  anomalies  into  which  it  may  be  distorted. 
The  original  germ  of  Pickwick  was  a  "  Club  of  Oddjiies-!'. 
The  idea  was  professedly  abandoned ;  but  traces  of  it  are  I 
to  be  found  in  all  Mr.  Dickens's  books.  It  illustrates  the 
professed  grotesqueness  of  the  characters  as  well  as  theirj 
slender  connection. 

The  defect  of  plot  is  heightened  by  Mr.  Dickens's  great, 
we  might  say  complete,  inability  to  make  a  love-story.  A 
pair  of  lovers  is  by  custom  a  necessity  of  narrative  fiction, 
and  writers  who  possess  a  great  general  range  of  mundane 
knowledge,  and  but  little  knowledge  of  the  special  sentimen- 
tal subject,  are  often  in  amusing  difficulties.  The  watchful 
reader  observes  the  transition  from  the  hearty  description  of 
well-known  scenes,  of  prosaic  streets,  or  journeys  by  wood 
and  river,  to  the  pale  colours  of  ill-attempted  poetry,  to  such 
sights  as  the  novelist  evidently  wishes  that  he  need  not  try 
to  see.  But  few  writers  exhibit  the  difficulty  in  so  aggra- 
vated a  form  as  Mr.  Dickens.  Most  men  by  taking  thought 
can  make  a  lay  figure  to  look  not  so  very  unlike  a  young 
gentleman,  and  can  compose  a  telling  schedule  of  ladylike 
gharms.  Mr.  Dickens  has  no  power  of  doing  either, 


154  Literary  Studies. 


The  heroic  character — we  do  not  mean  the  form  of  char- 
acter so  called  in  life  and  action,  but  that  which  is  here- 
ditary in  the  heroes  of  novels — is  not  suited  to  his  style 
of  art.  Hazlitt  wrote  an  essay  to  inquire  "  Why  the  heroes 
of  romances  are  insipid  "  ;  and  without  going  that  length 
it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  character  of  the  agreeable  young 
gentleman  who  loves  and  is  loved  should  not  be  of  the  most 
marked  sort.  Flirtation  ought  not  to  be  an  exaggerated 
pursuit.  Young  ladies  and  their  admirers  should  not  express 
themselves  in  the  heightened  and  imaginative  phraseology 
suited  to  Charley  Bates  and  the  Dodger.  Humour  is  of  no 
use,  for  no  one  makes  love  in  jokes  :  a  tinge  of  insidious 
satire  may  perhaps  be  permitted  as  a  rare  and  occasional 
relief,  but  it  will  not  be  thought  "  a  pretty  book,"  if  so 
malicious  an  element  be  at  all  habitually  perceptible.  The 
broad  farce  in  which  Mr.  Dickens  indulges  is  thoroughly  out 
of  place.  If  you  caricature  a  pair  of  lovers  ever  so  little,  by 
the  necessity  of  their  calling  you  make  them  ridiculous. 
I  )ne  of  Sheridan's  best  comedies l  is  remarkable  for  having 
i  .o  scene  in  which  the  hero  and  heroine  are  on  the  stage 
together;  and  Mr.  Moore  suggests2  that  the  shrewd  wit 
distrusted  his  skill  in  the  light,  dropping  love-talk  which 
would  have  been  necessary.  Mr.  Dickens  would  have  done 
well  to  imitate  so  astute  a  policy ;  but  he  has  none  of  the 
managing  shrewdness  which  those  who  look  at  Sheridan's 
career  attentively  will  probably  think  not  the  least  remark- 
able feature  in  his  singular  character.  Mr.  Dickens,  on  the 
contrary,  pours  out  painful  sentiments  as  if  he  wished  the 
abundance  should  make  up  for  the  inferior  quality.  The  ex- 
cruciating writing  which  is  expended  on  Miss  Ruth  Pinch :i 
passes  belief.  Mr.  Dickens  is  not  only  unable  to  make 

1 "  School  for  Scandal." 

2  Life  of  Sheridan,  vol.  i.,  chap,  v, 

3  Jn  Martin  Qhuzzlcn  it, 


Charles  Dickens.  155 


lovers  talk,  but  to  describe  heroines  in  mere  narrative.  As 
has  been  said,  most  men  can  make  a  jumble  of  blue  eyes 
and  fair  hair  and  pearly  teeth,  that  does  very  well  for  a 
young  lady,  at  least  for  a  good  while ;  but  Mr.  Dickens  will 
not,  probably  cannot,  attain  even  to  this  humble  measure 
of  descriptive  art.  He  vitiates  the  repose  by  broad  humour, 
or  disenchants  the  delicacy  By  an  unctuous  admiration. 

This  deficiency  is  probably  nearly  connected  with  one  of 
Mr.  Dickens's  most  remarkable  excellences.  No  one  can 
read  Mr.  Thackeray's  writings  without  feeling  that  he  is 
perpetually  treading  as  close  as  he  dare  to  the  border-line 
that  separates  the  world  which  may  be  described  in  books 
from  the  world  which  it  is  prohibited  so  to  describe.  No 
one  knows  better  than  this  accomplished  artist  where  that 
line  is,  and  how  curious  are  its  windings  and  turns.  The 
charge  against  him  is  that  he  knows  it  but  too  well ;  that 
with  an  anxious  care  and  a  wistful  eye  he  is  ever  approxi- 
mating to  its  edge,  and  hinting  with  subtle  art  how  thoroughly 
he  is  familiar  with,  and  how  interesting  he  could  make,  the 
interdicted  region  on  the  other  side.  He  never  violates  a 
single  conventional  rule;  but  at  the  same  time  the  shadow 
of  the  immorality  that  is  not  seen  is  scarcely  ever  wanting 
to  his  delineation  of  the  society  that  is  seen.  Every  one 
may  perceive  what  is  passing  in  his  fancy.  Mr.  Dickens  is 
chargeable  with  no  such  defect :  he  does  not  seem  to  feel  the 
temptation.  By  what  we  may  fairly  call  an  instinctive 
purity  of  genius,  he  not  only  observes  the  conventional 
rules,  but  makes  excursions  into  topics  which  no  othet 
novelist  could  safely  handle,  and,  by  a  felicitous  instinct, 
deprives  them  of  all  impropriety.  No  other  writer  could  havfe 
managed  the  humour  of  Mrs.  Gamp  without  becoming  un- 
endurable. At  the  same  time  it  is  difficult  not  to  believe 
that  this  singular  insensibility  to  the  temptations  to  which 
many  of  the  greatest  novelists  have  succumbed  is  in  some 


156  Literary  Studies. 


measure  connected  with  his  utter  inaptitude  for  delineating 

§*u~  portion  of  life  to  which  their  art  is  specially  inclined, 
delineates  neither  the  love-affairs  which  ought  to  be,  nor 
se  which  ought  not  to  be. 

Mr.  Dickens's  indisposition  to  "  make  capital  "  out  of  the 
most  commonly  tempting  part  of  human  sentiment  is  the 
more  remarkable  because  he  certainly  does  not  show  the 
same  indisposition  in  other  cases.  He  has  naturally  great 
powers  of  pathos ;  his  imagination  is  familiar  with  the 
common  sort  of  human  suffering ;  and  his  marvellous  con- 
versancy  with  the  detail  of  existence  enables  him  to  describe 
sick-beds  and  death-beds  with  an  excellence  very  rarely  seen 
lin  literature.  A  nature  far  more  sympathetic  than  that  of 
/most  authors  has  familiarised  him  with  such  subjects.  In 
general,  a  certain  apathy  is  characteristic  of  book- writers, 
and  dulls  the  efficacy  of  their  pathos.  Mr.  Dickens  is  quite 
exempt  from  this  defect ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  is  ex- 
ceedingly prone  to  a  very  ostentatious  exhibition  of  the 
opposite  excellence.  He  dwells  on  dismal  scenes  with  a  kind 
of  fawning  fondness  ;  and  he  seems  unwilling  to  leave  them, 
long  after  his  readers  have  had  more  than  enough  of  them. 
He  describes  Mr.  Dennis  the  hangman l  as  having  a  pro- 
fessional fondness  for  his  occupation  :  he  has  the  same  sort 
of  fondness  apparently  for  the  profession  of  death-painter. 
The  painful  details  he  accumulates  are  a  very  serious  draw- 
back from  the  agreeableness  of  his  writings.  Dismal  "  light 
literature  "  is  the  dismallest  of  reading.  The  reality  of  the 
police  reports  is  sufficiently  bad,  but  a  fictitious  police  report 
would  be  the  most  disagreeable  of  conceivable  compositions. 
Some  portions  of  Mr.  Dickens's  books  are  liable  to  a  good 
vmany  of  the  same  objections.  They  are  squalid  from 
\npisome  trivialities,  and  horrid  with  terrifying  crime.  In 
ys  earJier  books  this  is  commonly  relieved  at  frequent 

Mn  Bnrnab^y  Rudge, 


Charles  Dickens.  157 


intervals  by  a  graphic  and  original  mirth.  As,  we  will  not 
say  age,  but  maturity,  has  passed  over  his  powers,  this 
counteractive  element  has  been  lessened  ;  the  humour  is  not 
so  happy  as  it  was,  but  the  wonderful  fertility  in  painful 
minutice  still  remains. 

Mr.  Dickens's  political  opinions  have  subjected  him  to 
a  good  deal  of  criticism,  and  to  some  ridicule.  He  has 
shown,  on  many  occasions,  the  desire — which  we  see  so 
frequent  among  able  and  influential  men — to  start  as  a 
political  reformer.  Mr.  Spurgeon  said,  with  an  application 
to  himself:  "  If  you've  got  the  ear  of  the  public,  of  coiirse 
you  must  begin  to  tell  it  its  faults".  Mr.  Dickens  has  been 
quite  disposed  to  make  this  use  of  his  popular  influence. 
Even  in  Pickwick  there  are  many  traces  of  this  tendency ; 
and  the  way  in  which  it  shows  itself  in  that  book  and  in 
others  is  very  characteristic  of  the  time  at  which  they  ap- 
peared. The  most  instructive  political  characteristic  of  the 
years  1825  to  1845  ^s  the  growth  and  influence  of  the  scheme 
of  opinion  which  we  call  Radicalism.  There  are  several 
species  of  creeds  which  are  comprehended  under  this  generic 
name,  but  they  all  evince  a  marked  reaction  against  the 
worship  of  the  English  constitution  and  the  affection  for  the 
English  status  quo,  which  were  then  the  established  creed 
and  sentiment.  All  Radicals  are  Anti-Eldonites.  This  is 
equally  true  of  the  Benthamite  or  philosophical  radicalism 
of  the  early  period,  and  the  Manchester,  or  "  definite-griev- 
ance radicalism,"  among  the  last  vestiges  of  which  we  are 
now  living.  Mr.  Dickens  represents  a  species  different  from 
either.  His  is  what  we  may  call  _the "  sentimental 
radicalism  "  ;  and  if  we  recur  to  the  history  of  the  time,  we 
shall  find  that  there  would  not  originally  have  been  any 
opprobrium  attaching  to  such  a  name.  The  whole  course  of 
the  legislation,  and  still  more  of  the  administration,  of  the 
first  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  marked  by  a 


158  Literary  Studies. 


harsh  unfeelingness  which  is  of  all  faults  the  most  contrary 
to  any  with  which  we  are  chargeable  now.  The  world  of  the 
"  Six  Acts," l  of  the  frequent  executions,  of  the  Draconic 
criminal  law,  is  so  far  removed  from  us  that  we  cannot 
comprehend  its  having  ever  existed.  It  is  more  easy  to 
understand  the  recoil  which  has  followed.  All  the  social 
speculation,  and  much  of  the  social  action  of  the  few  years 
succeeding  the  Reform  Bill,  bear  the  most  marked  traces  of 
the  reaction.  The  spirit  which  animates  Mr.  Dickens's 
Political  reasonings  and  observations  expresses  it  exactly. 
'V he  vice  of  the  then  existing  social  authorities,  and  of  the 
men  existing  public,  had  been  the  forgetfulness  of  the  pain 
\yhich  their  own  acts  evidently  produced, — an  unrealising 
habit  which  adhered  to  official  rules  and  established 
maxims,  and  which  would  not  be  shocked  by  the  evident 
consequences,  by  proximate  human  suffering.  The  sure 
result  of  this  habit  was  the  excitement  of  the  habit  pre- 
cisely opposed  to  it.  Mr.  Carlyle,  in  his  Chartism,  we 
think,  observes  of  the  poor-law  reform  :  "  It  was  then, 
above  all  things,  necessary  that  outdoor  relief  should  cease. 
But  how  ?  What  means  did  great  Nature  take  for  ac- 
complishing that  most  desirable  end  ?  She  created  a  race 
of  men  who  believed  the  cessation  of  outdoor  relief  to  be 
the  one  thing  needful."  In  the  same  way,  and  by  the  same 
ropensity  to  exaggerated  opposition  which  is  inherent 
n  human  nature,  the  unfeeling  obtuseness  of  the  early  part 
f  this  century  was  to  be  corrected  by  an  extreme,  perhaps 
n  excessive,  sensibility  to  human  suffering  in  the  years 
rhich  have  followed.  There  was  most  adequate  reason  for 


i  Of  23rd  November,  3rd  December,  and  i7th  December,  1819; 
introduced  by  Eldon,  Sidmouth  and  Castlereagh,  to  put  down  sedition, 
just  after  the  Manchester  massacre  and  the  Cato  Street  conspiracy. 
(Forrest  Morgan.) 


Charles  Dickens,  159 


the  sentiment  in  its  origin,  and  it  had  a  great  task  to  perform 
in  ameliorating  harsh  customs  and  repealing  dreadful 
penalties ;  but  it  has  continued  to  repine  at  such  evils 
after  they  ceased  to  exist,  and  when  the  only  facts  that 
all  resemble  them  are  the  necessary  painfulness  of 
punishment  and  the  necessary  rigidity  of  established  la> 
Mr.  Dickens  is  an  example  both  of  the  proper  use  and  of  the 
abuse  of  the  sentiment.  His  earlier  works  have  many 
excellent  descriptions  of  the  abuses  which  had  descended 
to  the  present  generation  from  others  whose  sympathy  with 
pain  was  less  tender.  Nothing  can  be  better  than  the 
description  of  the  poor  debtors'  gaol  in  Pickwick,  or  of  the 
old  parochial  authorities  in  Oliver  Twist.  No  doubt  these 
descriptions  are  caricatures,  all  his  delineations  are  so ; 
but  the  beneficial  use  of  such  art  can  hardly  be  better  ex- 
emplified. Human  nature  endures  the  aggravation  of  vices 
and  foibles  in  written  description  better  than  that  of 
excellences.  We  cannot  bear  to  hear  even  the  hero  of  a 
book  for  ever  called  "just"  ;  we  detest  the  recurring  praise 
even  of  beauty,  much  more  of  virtue.  The  moment  you 
begin  to  exaggerate  a  character  of  true  excellence,  you  spoil 
it ;  the  traits  are  too  delicate  not  to  be  injured  by  heighten- 
ing, or  marred  by  over-emphasis.  But  a  beadle  is  made  for 
caricature.  The  slight  measure  of  pomposity  that  human- 
ises his  unfeelingness  introduces  the  requisite  comic  element; 
even  the  turnkeys  of  a  debtors'  prison  may  by  skilful  hands 
be  similarly  used.  The  contrast  between  the  destitute  con- 
dition of  Job  Trotter  and  Mr.  Jingle  and  their  former 
swindling  triumph  is  made  comic  by  a  rarer  touch  of  un- 
conscious art.  Mr.  Pickwick's  warm  heart  takes  so  eager 
an  interest  in  the  misery  of  his  old  enemies,  that  our  colder 
nature  is  tempted  to  smile.  We  endure  the  over-intensity, 
at  any  rate  the  unnecessary  aggravation,  of  the  surrounding 
misery ;  and  we  endure  it  willingly,  because  it  brings  out 


Literary  Studies. 


better  than  anything  else  could  have  done  the  half-comic 
intensity  of  a  sympathetic  nature. 

It  is  painful  to  pass  from  these  happy  instances  of  well- 
used  power  to  the  glaring  abuses  of  the  same  faculty  in  Mr. 
Dickens's  later  books.  He  began  by  describing  really 
removable  evils  in  a  style  which  would  induce  all  persons, 
however  insensible,  to  remove  them  if  they  could  ;  he  has 
ended  by  describing  the  natural  evils  and  inevitable  pains 
of  the  present  state  of  being,  in  such  a  manner  as  must  tend 
to  excite  discontent  and  repining.  The  result  is  aggravated, 
because  Mr.  Dickens  never  ceases  to  hint  that  these  evils 
«X£  removable,  though  he  does  not  say  by  what  means. 
Nothing  is  easier  than  to  show  the  evils  of  anything.  Mr. 
Dickens  has  not  unfrequently  spoken,  and,  what  is  worse, 
he  has  taught  a  great  number  of  parrot-like  imitators  to 
speak,  in  what  really  is,  if  they  knew  it,  a  tone  of  objection 
to  the  necessary  constitution  of  human  society.  If  you  will 
only  write  a  description  of  it,  any  form  of  government  will 
seem  ridiculous.  What  is  more  absurd  than  a  despotism, 
even  at  its  best  ?  A  king  of  ability  or  an  able  minister  sits 
in  an  orderly  room  filled  with  memorials,  and  returns,  and 
documents,  and  memoranda.  These  are  his  world  ;  among 
these  he  of  necessity  lives  and  moves.  Yet  how  little  of 
the  real  life  of  the  nation  he  governs  can  be  represented  in 
an  official  form  !  How  much  of  real  suffering  is  there  that 
statistics  can  never  tell !  how  much  of  obvious  good  is  there 
that  no  memorandum  to  a  minister  will  ever  mention ! 
how  much  deception  is  there  in  what  such  documents 
contain !  how  monstrous  must  be  the  ignorance  of  the 
closet  statesman,  after  all  his  life  of  labour,  of  much  that 
a  ploughman  could  tell  him  of!  A  free  government  is 
almost  worse,  as  it  must  read  in  a  written  delineation. 
Instead  of  the  real  attention  of  a  laborious  and  anxious 
statesman,  we  have  now  the  shifting  caprices  of  a  popular 


Charles  Dickens.  161 


assembly — elected    for   one    object,    deciding    on   another; 
changing   with   the   turn    of  debate  ;   shifting   in    its   very 
composition ;  one  set  of  men  coming  down  to  vote  to-day, 
to-morrow  another  and  often  unlike  set,  most  of  them  eager 
for  the  dinner-hour,  actuated   by  unseen  influences,   by  a 
respect  for  their  constituents,  by  the  dread  of  an  attorney 
in  a  far-off  borough.     What  people  are  these  to  control  a 
nation's  destinies,  and  wield  the  power  of  an  empire,  and 
regulate  the  happiness  of  millions  !     Either  way  we  are  at 
fault.     Free  government  seems  an  absurdity,  and  despotisrr 
is  so  too.    Again,  every  form  of  law  has  a  distinct  expression 
a  rigid   procedure,  customary  rules  and   forms.     It  is  ad 
ministered  by  human  beings  liable  to  mistake,  confusion 
and  forgetfulness,  and  in  the  long  run,  and  on  the  average 
is  sure  to  be  tainted  with  vice  and  fraud.     Nothing  can  be 
easier  than  to  make  a  case,  as  we  may  say,  against  any 
particular  system,  by  pointing  out  with  emphatic  caricature 
its  inevitable  miscarriages,  and  by  pointing  out  nothing  else.; 
Those  who  so  address  us  may  assume  a  tone  of  philanrnropyj 
and  for  ever  exult  that  they  are  not  so  unfeeling  as  othe 
men  are  ;  but  the  real  tendency  of  their  exhortations  is  t 
make  men  dissatisfied  with  their  inevitable  condition,  an 
what  is  worse,  to  make  them  fancy  that  its  irremediab 
evils  can  be  remedied,  and  indulge  in  a  succession  of  vagije 
strivings  and  restless  changes.     Such,  however — though  |n 
a  style  of  expression  somewhat  different — is  very  much  the 
tone  with  which  Mr.  Dickens  and  his  followers  have  in  later 
years  made  us  familiar.     To  the  second-hand  repeaters  of 
a  cry  so  feeble,  we  can  have  nothing  to  say ;  if  silly  people 
cry  because  they  think  the  world  is  silly,  let  them  cry ;  but 
the  founder  of  the  school  cannot,  we  are  persuaded,  peruse 
without  mirth  the  lachrymose  eloquence  which  his  disciples 
have  perpetrated.    The  soft  moisture  of  irrelevant  sentiment 
cannot   have   entirely   entered    into   his    soul.     A    truthful 

VOL.    II.  II 


1 62  Literary  Studies. 


genius  must  have  forbidden  it.  Let  us  hope  that  his  per- 
nicious example  may  incite  some  one  of  equal  genius  to 
preach  with  equal  efficiency  a  sterner  and  a  wiser  gospel ; 
but  there  is  no  need  just  now  for  us  to  preach  it  without 
genius. 


There  has  been  much  controversy  about  Mr.  Dickens's 
taste.  A  great  many  cultivated  people  will  scarcely  concede 
that  he  has  any  taste  at  all ;  a  still  larger  number  of  fervent 
admirers  point,  on  the  other  hand,  to  a  hundred  felicitous 
descriptions  and  delineations  which  abound  in  apt  expres- 
sions and  skilful  turns  and  happy  images, — in  which  it 
would  be  impossible  to  alter  a  single  word  without  altering 
for  the  worse ;  and  naturally  inquire  whether  such  ex- 
cellences in  what  is  written  do  not  indicate  good  taste  in 
the  writer.  The  truth  is,  that  Mr.  Dickens  has  what  we 
may  call  crgaluze—laste ;  that  is  to  say,  the  habit  or  faculty, 
whichever  we  may  choose  to  call  it,  which  at  the  critical 
instant  of  artistic  production  offers  to  the  mind  the  right 
word,  and  therigkt-avord  only.  If  he  is  engaged  on  a  good 
subject  for  caricature,  there  will  be  no  defect  of  taste  to 
preclude  the  caricature  from  being  excellent.  But  it  is  only 
in  moments  of  imaginative  production  that  he  has  any  taste 
at  all.  His  works  nowhere  indicate  mat  fie  possesses  in 
any  degree  the  passive  taste  which  decides  what  is  good  in 
the  writings  of  other  people,  and  what  is  not,  and  which 
performs  the  same  critical  duty  upon  a  writer's  own  efforts 
when  the  confusing  mists  of  productive  imagination  have 
passed  away.  Nor  has  Mr.  Dickens  the  gentlemanly  in- 
^stinct  which  in  many  minds  supplies  the  place  of  purely 
critical  discernment,  and  which,  by  constant  association 
with  those  who  know  what  is  best,  acquires  a  second-hand 
perception  of  that  which  is  best.  He  has  no  tendency  to 
conventionalism  for  good  or  for  evil ;  his  merits  are  far 
removed  from  the  ordinary  path  of  writers,  and  it  was  not 


Charles  Dickens.  163 


probably  so  much  effort  to  him  as  to  other  men  to  step  so 
far  out  of  that  path  :  he  scarcely  knew  how  far  it  was.  For 
the  same  reason,  he  cannot  tell  how  faulty  his  writing  will 
often  be  thought,  for  he  cannot  tell  what  people  will 
think. 

A  few  pedantic  critics  have  regretted  that  Mr.  Dickens 
had  not  received  what  they  call  a  regular  education.     And 
if  we  understand  their  meaning,  we  believe  they  mean  to 
regret  that  he  had  not  received  a  course  of  discipline  which 
would  probably  have  impaired  his  powers.     A  regular  educa- 
tion should  mean  that  ordinary  system  of  regulation  and 
instruction  whichTexperience    has  shown  to  fit   men  best 
for  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  life.     It  applies  the  requisite 
discipline  to  each  faculty  in  the  exact  proportion  in  which 
that  faculty  is  wanted  in  the  pursuits  of  life ;   it  develops 
understanding,    and    memory,    and    imagination,    each    in 
accordance  with  the  scale  prescribed.     To  men  of  ordinary 
faculties  this  is  nearly  essential ;   it  is  the  only  mode  in 
which  they  can  be  fitted  for  the  inevitable  competition  of 
existence.     To  men  of  regular  and  symmetrical  genius  also 
such  a  training  will  often  be  beneficial.     The  world  knows 
pretty  well  what  are  the  great  tasks  of  the  human  mind 
and  has  learned  in  the  course  of  ages  with  some  accuracj 
what  is  the  kind  of  culture  likely  to  promote  their  exac 
performance.     A  man  of  abilities  extraordinary  in  degree 
but  harmonious  in  proportion  will  be  the  better  for  having 
submitted  to  the  kind  of  discipline  which  has  been  ascer- 
tained to  fit  a  man  for  the  work  to  which  powers  in  that 
proportion  are  best  fitted ;    he  will  do  what  he  has  to  do 
better  and   more  gracefully ;    culture  will  add    a  touch  to 
the  finish  of  nature.     But  the  case  is  very  different  withi 
men  of  irregular  and  anomalous  genius,  whose  excellences/ 
consist  in  the  aggravation  of  some  special   faculty,  or  ar 
the  most  one  or  two.     The  discipline  which  will   fit  such 


164  Literary  Studies. 


a  man  for  the  production  of  great  literary  works  is  that 
Irhich  will  most  develop  the  peculiar  powers  in  which  he 
axcels ;  the  rest  of  the  mind  will  be  far  less  important ; 
it  will  not  be  likely  that  the  culture  which  is  adapted  to 
promote  this  special  development  will  also  be  that  which 
is  most  fitted  for  expanding  the  powers  of  common  men 
in  common  directions.  The  precise  problem  is  to  develop 
the  powers  of  a  strange  man  in  a  strange  direction.  In 
the  case  of  Mr.  Dickens,  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  have 
shut  up  his  observant  youth  within  the  walls  of  a  college. 
They  would  have  taught  him  nothing  about  Mrs.  Gamp 
there ;  Sam  Weller  took  no  degree.  The  kind  of  early 
life  fitted  to  develop  the  power  of  apprehensive  observation 
s  a  brooding  life  in  stirring  scenes ;  the  idler  in  the  streets 
:>f  life  knows  the  streets ;  the  bystander  knows  the  pictur- 
esque effect  of  life  better  than  the  player ;  and  the  meditative 
dler  amid  the  hum  of  existence  is  much  more  likely  to 
enow  its  sound  and  to  take  in  and  comprehend  its  depths 
and  meanings  than  the  scholastic  student  intent  on  books, 
which,  if  they  represent  any  world,  represent  one  which 
has  long  passed  away, — which  commonly  try  rather  to 
develop  the  reasoning  understanding  than  the  seeing  ob- 
servation,— which  are  written  in  languages  that  have  long 
been  dead.  You  will  nnt  trajn  by  such  discipline  a  carica- 
turist of  obvious  manners. 

Perhaps,  too,  a  regular  instruction  and  daily  experience 
of  the  searching  ridicule  of  critical  associates  would  have 
detracted  from  the  pluck  which  Mr.  Dickens  shows  in  all 
his  writings.  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  courage  to  be  a 
humorous  writer ;  you  are  always  afraid  that  people  will 
laugh  at  you  instead  of  with  you :  undoubtedly  there  is  a 
certain  eccentricity  about  it.  You  take  up  the  esteemed 
writers,  Thucydides  and  the  Saturday  Review ;  after  all, 
they  do  not  make  you  laugh.  It  is  not  the  function  of 


Charles  Dickens.  165 


really  artistic  productions  to  contribute  to  the  mirth  of 
human  beings.  All  sensible  men  are  afraid  of  it,  and  it  is 
only  with  an  extreme  effort  that  a  printed  joke  attains  to 
the  perusal  of  the  public :  the  chances  are  many  to  one  that 
the  anxious  producer  loses  heart  in  the  correction  of  the 
press,  and  that  the  world  never  laughs  at  all.  Mr.  Dickens  is 
quite  exempt  from  this  weakness.  He  has  what  a  Frenchman 
might  call  the  coujarge  of  his  faculty.  The  real  daring  which 
is  shown  in  the  Pickwick  Papers,  in  the  whole  character  of 
Mr.  Weller  senior,  as  well  as  in  that  of  his  son,  is  immense, 
far  surpassing  any  which  has  been  shown  by  any  other  con- 
temporary writer.  The  brooding  irregular  mind  is  in  its 
first  stage  prone  to  this  sort  of  courage.  It  perhaps  knows 
that  its  ideas  are  "  out  of  the  way  "  ;  but  with  the  infantine 
simplicity  of  youth,  it  supposes  that  originality  is  an 
advantage.  Persons  more  familiar  with  the  ridicule  of 
their  equals  in  station  (and  this  is  to  most  men  the  great 
instructress  of  the  college  time)  well  know  that  of  all 
qualities  this  one  most  requires  to  be  clipped  and  pared  and 
measured.  Posterity,  we  doubt  not,  will  be  entirely  perfect/ 
in  every  conceivable  element  of  judgment ;  but  the  existing!/ 
generation  like  what  they  have  heard  before — it  is  much! 
easier.  It  required  great  courage  in  Mr.  Dickens  to  write! 
what  his  genius  has  compelled  them  to  appreciate. 

We  have  throughout  spoken  of  Mr.  Dickens  as  he  was, 
rather  than  as  he  is ;  or,  to  use  a  less  discourteous  phrase, 
and  we  hope  a  truer,  of  his  early  works  rather  than  of  those 
which  are  more  recent.  We  could  not  do  otherwise  con- 
sistently with  the  true  code  of  criticism.  A  man  of  great 
genius,  who  has  written  great  and  enduring  works,  must 
be  judged  mainly  by  them ;  and  not  by  the  inferior  productions 
which,  from  the  necessities  of  personal  position,  a  fatal 
facility  of  composition,  or  other  cause,  he  may  pour  forth 
at  moments  less  favourable  to  his  powers.  Those  who 


166  Literary  Studies. 


are  called  on  to  review  these  inferior  productions  them- 
selves, must  speak  of  them  in  the  terms  they  may  deserve; 
but  those  who  have  the  more  pleasant  task  of  estimating 
as  a  whole  the  genius  of  the  writer,  may  confine  their 
attention  almost  wholly  to  those  happier  efforts  which 
illustrate  that  genius.  We  should  not  like  to  have  to  speak 
in  detail  of  Mr.  Dickens's  later  works,  and  we  have  not 
done  so.  There  are,  indeed,  peculiar  reasons  why  a  genius 
constituted  as  his  is  (at  least  if  we  are  correct  in  the  view 
which  we  have  taken  of  it)  would  not  endure  without  injury 
during  a  long  life  the  applause  of  the  many,  the  temptations 
of  composition,  and  the  general  excitement  of  existence. 
Even  in  his  earlier  works  it  was  impossible  not  to  fancy 
that  there  was  a  weakness  of  fibre  unfavourable  to  the 
longevity  of  excellence.  This  was  the  effect  of  his  deficiency 
in  those  masculine  faculties  of  which  we  have  said  so  much, 
—the  reasoning  understanding  and  firm  far-seeing  sagacity, 
t  is  these  two  component  elements  which  stiffen  the  mind, 
nd  give  a  consistency  to  the  creed  and  a  coherence  to  its 
ffects, — which  enable  it  to  protect  itself  from  the  rush  of 
:ircumstances.  If  to  a  deficiency  in  these  we  add  an 
extreme  sensibility  to  circumstances, — a  mobility,  as  Lord 
Byron  used  to  call  it,  of  emotion,  which  is  easily  impressed, 
and  still  more  easily  carried  away  by  impression, — we  have 
the  idea  of  a  character  peculiarly  unfitted  to  bear  the  flux 
of  time  and  chance.  A  man  of  very  great  determination 
could  hardly  bear  up  against  them  with  such  slight  aids 
from  within  and  with  such  peculiar  sensibility  to  temptation. 
A  man  of  merely  ordinary  determination  would  succumb 
to  it ;  and  Mr.  Dickens  has  succumbed.  His  position  was 
certainly  unfavourable.  He  has  told  us  that  the  works  of 
his  later  years,  inferior  as  all  good  critics  have  deemed 
them,  have  yet  been  more  read  than  those  of  his  earlier 
and  healthier  years.  The  most  characteristic  part  of  his 


Charles  Dickens.  167 


audience,  the  lower  middle-class,  were  ready  to  receive  with 
delight  the  least  favourable  productions  of  genius.  Human 
nature  cannot  endure  this ;  it  is  too  much  to  have  to  endure 
a  coincident  temptation  both  from  within  and  from  withou  . 
Mr.  Dickens  was  too  much  inclined  by  natural  dispositic  n 
to  lachrymose  eloquence  and  exaggerated  caricature.  Sue  h 
was  the  kind  of  writing  which  he  wrote  most  easily.  He 
found  likewise  that  such  was  the  kind  of  writing  that  was 
read  most  readily  ;  and  of  course  he  wrote  that  kind.  Who 
would  have  done  otherwise  ?  No  critic  is  entitled  to  speak 
very  harshly  of  such  degeneracy,  if  he  is  not  sure  that  he 
could  have  coped  with  difficulties  so  peculiar.  If  that 
rule  is  to  be  observed,  who  is  there  that  will  not  be  silent  I 
No  other  Englishman  has  attained  such  a  hold  on  the 
vast  populace  ;  it  is  little,  therefore,  to  say  that  no  nthpj  _ 
has  surmounted  its  attendant  temptations. 


i68 


JOHN  MILTON.1 
(1859.) 

THE  Life  of  Milton,  by  Professor  Masson,  is  a  difficulty  for 
the  critics.  It  is  very  laborious,  very  learned,  and  in  the 
main,  we  believe,  very  accurate.  It  is  exceedingly  long, — 
there  are  780  pages  in  this  volume,  and  there  are  to  be  two 
volumes  more :  it  touches  on  very  many  subjects,  and  each 
of  these  has  been  investigated  to  the  very  best  of  the 
author's  ability.  No  one  can  wish  to  speak  with  censure  of 
a  book  on  which  so  much  genuine  labour  has  been  ex- 
pended ;  and  yet  we  are  bound,  as  true  critics,  to  say  that 
we  think  it  has  been  composed  upon  a  principle  that  is 
utterly  erroneous.  In  justice  to  ourselves  we  must  explain 
our  meaning. 

There  are  two  methods  on  which  biography  may  con- 
sistently be  written.  The  first  of  these  is  what  we  may  call 
the  exhaustive  method.  Every  fact  which  is  known  about 
the  hero  may  be  told  us ;  everything  which  he  did,  every- 
thing which  he  would  not  do,  everything  which  other 

i  The  Life  of  John  Milton,  narrated  in  connection  with  the  Political, 
Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  time.  By  David  Masson, 
M.A.,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  University  College,  London. 
Cambridge :  Macmillan. 

An  Account  of  the  Life,  Opinions,  and  Writings  of  John  Milton. 
By  Thomas  Keightley ;  with  an  Introduction  to  "  Paradise  Lost  ".  Lon- 
don :  Chapman  and  Hall. 

The  Poems  of  Milton,  with  Notes  by  Thomas  Keightley.  London  : 
Chapman  and  Hall. 


John  Milton.  169 

people  did  to  him,  everything  which  other  people  would 
not  do  to  him, — may  be  narrated  at  full  length.  We  may 
have  a  complete  picture  of  all  the  events  of  his  life ;  of  all 
which  he  underwent,  and  all  which  he  achieved.  We  may, 
as  Mr.  Carlyle  expresses  it,  have  a  complete  account  "of 
his  effect  upon  the  universe,  and  of  the  effect  of  the  universe 
upon  him".  We  admit  that  biographies  of  this  species 
would  be  very  long  and  generally  very  tedious,  we  know 
that  the  world  could  not  contain  very  many  of  them ;  but 
nevertheless  the  principle  on  which  they  may  be  written  is 
intelligible. 

The  second  method  on  which  the  life  of  a  man  may  be 
written  is  the  selective.  Instead  of  telling  everything,  we 
may  choose  what  we  will  tell.  We  may  select  out  of  the 
numberless  events,  from  among  the  innumerable  actions  of 
his  life,  those  events  and  those  actions  which  exemplify  his 
true  character,  which  prove  to  us  what  were  the  true  limits 
of  his  talents,  what  was  the  degree  of  his  deficiencies, 
which  were  his  defects,  which  his  vices, — in  a  word,  we  may 
select  the  traits  and  the  particulars  which  seem  to  give  us 
the  best  idea  of  the  man  as  he  lived  and  as  he  was.  On 
this  side  the  flood,  as  Sydney  Smith  would  have  said,  we 
should  have  fancied  that  this  was  the  only  practicable 
principle  on  which  biographies  can  be  written  about  persons 
of  whom  many  details  are  recorded.  For  ancient  heroes 
the  exhaustive  method  is  possible.  All  that  can  be  known 
of  them  is  contained  in  a  few  short  passages  of  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  it  is  quite  possible  to  say  whatever  can  be  said 
about  every  one  of  these :  the  result  would  not  be  unreason- 
ably bulky,  though  it  might  be  dull.  But  in  the  case  of 
men  who  have  lived  in  the  thick  of  the  crowded  modern 
world,  no  such  course  is  admissible ;  overmuch  may  be  said, 
and  we  must  choose  what  we  will  say.  Biographers,  how- 
ever, are  rarely  bold  enough  to  adopt  the  selective  method 


170  Literary  Studies. 


consistently.  They  have,  we  suspect,  the  fear  of  the  critics 
before  their  eyes.  They  do  not  like  that  it  should  be  said 
that  "  the  work  of  the  learned  gentleman  contains  serious 
omissions:  the  events  of  1562  are  not  mentioned;  those  of 
October,  1579,  are  narrated  but  very  cursorily" :  and  we  fear 
that  in  any  case  such  remarks  will  be  made.  Very  learned 
people  are  pleased  to  show  that  they  know  what  is  not  in  the 
book ;  sometimes  they  may  hint  that  perhaps  the  author  did 
not  know  it,  or  surely  he  would  have  mentioned  it.  But  a  bio- 
grapher who  wishes  to  write  what  most  people  of  cultivation 
will  be  pleased  to  read  must  be  courageous  enough  to  face  the 
pain  of  such  censures.  He  must  choose,  as  we  have  explained, 
the  characteristic  parts  of  his  subject ;  and  all  that  he  has 
to  take  care  of  besides,  is  so  to  narrate  them  that  their  char- 
acteristic elements  shall  be  shown :  to  give  such  an  account 
of  the  general  career  as  may  make  it  clear  what  these  chosen 
events  really  were;  to  show  their  respective  bearings  to  one 
another ;  to  delineate  what  is  expressive  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  make  it  expressive. 

This  plan  of  biography  is,  however,  by  no  means  that  of 
Mr.  Masson.  He  has  no  dread  of  overgrown  bulk  and 
overwhelming  copiousness.  He  finds,  indeed,  what  we 
have  called  the  exhaustive  method  insufficient.  He  not 
only  wishes  to  narrate  in  full  the  life  of  Milton,  but  to  add 
those  of  his  contemporaries  likewise :  he  seems  to  wish  to 
tell  us  not  only  what  Milton  did,  but  also  what  every  one 
else  did  in  Great  Britain  during  his  lifetime.  He  intends 
his  book  to  be  not  "  merely  a  biography  of  Milton,  but  also 
in  some  sort  a  continuous  history  of  his  time.  .  .  .  The 
suggestions  of  Milton's  life  have  indeed  determined  the 
tracks  of  these  historical  researches  and  expositions,  some- 
times through  the  literature  of  the  period,  sometimes 
through  its  civil  and  ecclesiastical  politics  ;  but  the  extent 
to  which  I  have  pursued  them,  and  the  space  which  I  have 


John  Milton.  171 

assigned  to  them,  have  been  determined  by  my  desire  to 
present,  by  their  combination,  something  like  a  connected 
historical  view  of  British  thought  and  British  society  in 
general  prior  to  the  Revolution."  We  need  not  do  more 
than  observe  that  this  union  of  heterogeneous  aims  must 
always  end,  as  it  has  in  this  case,  in  the  production  of  a 
work  at  once  overgrown  and  incomplete.  A  great  deal 
which  has  only  a  slight  bearing  on  the  character  of  Milton 
is  inserted ;  much  that  is  necessary  to  a  true  history  of 
"British  thought  and  British  society"  is  of  necessity  left 
out.  The  period  of  Milton's  life  which  is  included  in  the 
published  volume  makes  the  absurdity  especially  apparent. 
In  middle  life  Milton  was  a  great  controversialist  on  con- 
temporary topics ;  and  though  it  would  not  be  proper  for  a 
biographer  to  load  his  pages  with  a  full  account  of  all  such 
controversies,  yet  some  notice  of  the  most  characteristic  of 
them  would  be  expected  from  him.  In  this  part  of  Milton's 
life  some  reference  to  public  events  would  be  necessary ; 
and  we  should  not  severely  censure  a  biographer,  if  the  great 
interest  of  those  events  induced  him  to  stray  a  little  from 
his  topic.  But  the  first  thirty  years  of  Milton's  life  require  a 
very  different  treatment.  He  passed  those  years  in  the 
ordinary  musings  of  a  studious  and  meditative  youth ;  it 
was  the  period  of  "  Lycidas  "  and  of  "  Comus  " ;  he  then 
dreamed  the 

"  Sights  which  youthful  poets  dream 
On  summer  eve  by  haunted  stream  "-1 

We  do  not  wish  to  have  this  part  of  his  life  disturbed,  to  a 
greater  extent  than  may  be  necessary,  with  the  harshness 
of  public  affairs.  Nor  is  it  necessary  that  it  should  be  so 
disturbed.  A  life  of  poetic  retirement  requires  but  little 
reference  to  anything  except  itself.  In  a  biography  of  Mr. 

1  "  L'Allegro. " 


172  Literary  Studies. 


Tennyson  we  should  not  expect  to  hear  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
or  the  Corn  Laws.  Mr.  Masson  is,  however,  of  a  different 
opinion.  He  thinks  it  necessary  to  tell  us,  not  only  all 
which  Milton  did,  but  everything  also  that  he  might  have 
heard  of. 

The  biography  of  Mr.  Keightley  is  on  a  very  different 
scale.  He  tells  the  story  of  Milton's  career  in  about  half 
a  small  volume.  Probably  this  is  a  little  too  concise,  and 
the  narrative  is  somewhat  dry  and  bare.  It  is  often,  how- 
ever, acute,  and  is  always  clear ;  and  even  were  its  defects 
greater  than  they  are,  we  should  think  it  unseemly  to 
criticise  the  last  work  of  one  who  has  performed  so  many 
useful  services  to  literature  with  extreme  severity. 

The  bare  outline  of  Milton's  life  is  very  well  known.  We 
have  all  heard  that  he  was  born  in  the  latter  years  of  King 
James,  just  when  Puritanism  was  collecting  its  strength  for 
the  approaching  struggle ;  that  his  father  and  mother  were 
quiet  good  people,  inclined,  but  not  immoderately,  to  that 
persuasion  ;  that  he  went  up  to  Cambridge  early,  and  had 
some  kind  of  dissension  with  the  authorities  there ;  that  the 
course  of  his  youth  was  in  a  singular  degree  pure  and  staid  ; 
that  in  boyhood  he  was  a  devourer  of  books,  and  that  he 
early  became,  and  always  remained,  a  severely  studious 
man ;  that  he  married,  and  had  difficulties  of  a  peculiar 
character  with  his  first  wife ;  that  he  wrote  on  Divorce ; 
that  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  he  married  a  second 
time  a  lady  who  died  very  soon,  and  a  third  time  a  person 
who  survived  him  more  than  fifty  years ;  that  he  wrote 
early  poems  of  singular  beauty,  which  we  still  read ;  that 
he  travelled  in  Italy,  and  exhibited  his  learning  in  the 
academies  there  ;  that  he  plunged  deep  in  the  theological 
and  political  controversies  of  his  time ;  that  he  kept  a  school, 
or  rather,  in  our  more  modern  phrase,  took  pupils ;  that  he 
was  a  republican  of  a  peculiar  kind,  and  of  "  no  Church," 


John  Milton.  173 


which  Dr.  Johnson  thought  dangerous  ;  that  he  was  Secre- 
tary for  Foreign  Languages  under  the  Long  Parliament,  and 
retained  that  office  after  the  coup  d'etat  of  Cromwell ;  that 
he  defended  the  death  of  Charles  I.,  and  became  blind  from 
writing  a  book  in  haste  upon  that  subject ;  that  after  the 
Restoration  he  was  naturally  in  a  position  of  some  danger 
and  much  difficulty ;  that  in  the  midst  of  that  difficulty  he 
wrote  "Paradise  Lost";  that  he  did  not  fail  in  "  heart  or 
hope,"1  but  lived  for  fourteen  years  after  the  destruction  of 
all  for  which  he  had  laboured,  in  serene  retirement,  "though 
fallen  on  evil  days,  though  fallen  on  evil  times"; — all  this 
we  have  heard  from  our  boyhood.  How  much  is  wanting 
to  complete  the  picture — how  many  traits,  both  noble  and 
painful,  might  be  recovered  from  the  past — we  shall  never 
know,  till  some  biographer  skilled  in  interpreting  the  details 
of  human  nature  shall  select  this  subject  for  his  art. 

All  that  we  can  hope  to  do  in  an  essay  like  this  is,  to 
throw  together  some  miscellaneous  remarks  on  the  character 
of  the  Puritan  poet,  and  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  works ; 
and  if  in  any  part  of  them  we  may  seem  to  make  unusual 
criticisms,  and  to  be  over-ready  with  depreciation  or  ob- 
jection, our  excuse  must  be  that  we  wish  to  paint  a  likeness, 
and  that  the  harsher  features  of  the  subject  should  have  a 
prominence,  even  in  an  outline. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  goodness  conspicuous  in  the 
world,  and  often  made  the  subject  of  contrast  there ;  for 
which,  however,  we  seem  to  want  exact  words,  and  which 
we  are  obliged  to  describe  rather  vaguely  and  incompletely. 
These  characters  may  in  one  aspect  be  called  the  sensuous 
and  the  ascetic.  The  character  of  the  first  is  that  which  is 
almost  personified  in  the  poet-king  of  Israel,  whose  actions 
and  whose  history  have  been  "improved''  so  often  by  various 
writers,  that  it  now  seems  trite  even  to  allude  to  them. 
1  Sonnet  xix. 


174  Literary  Studies. 


Nevertheless,  the  particular  virtues  and  the  particular  career 
of  David  seem  to  embody  the  idea  of  what  may  be  called 
sensuous  goodness  far  more  completely  than  a  living  being 
in  general  comes  near  to  an  abstract  idea.  There  may  have 
been  shades  in  the  actual  man  which  would  have  modified 
the  resemblance ;  but  in  the  portrait  which  has  been  handed 
down  to  us,  the  traits  are  perfect  and  the  approximation 
exact.  The  principle  of  this  character  is  its  sensibility  to 
outward  stimulus ;  it  is  moved  by  all  which  occurs,  stirred 
by  all  which  happens,  open  to  the  influences  of  whatever  it 
sees,  hears,  or  meets  with.  The  certain  consequence  of  this 
mental  constitution  is  a  peculiar  liability  to  temptation. 
Men  are,  according  to  the  divine,  "  put  upon  their  trial 
through  the  senses  ".  It  is  through  the  constant  sugges- 
tions of  the  outer  world  that  our  minds  are  stimulated,  that 
our  will  has  the  chance  of  a  choice,  that  moral  life  becomes 
possible.  The  sensibility  to  this  external  stimulus  brings 
with  it,  when  men  have  it  to  excess,  an  unusual  access  of 
moral  difficulty.  Everything  acts  on  them,  and  everything 
has  a  chance  of  turning  them  aside ;  the  most  tempting 
things  act  upon  them  very  deeply,  and  their  influence,  in 
consequence,  is  extreme.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  errors  of 
such  men  are  great.  We  need  not  point  the  moral — 

"  Dizzied  faith  and  guilt  and  woe, 
Loftiest  aims  by  earth  defiled, 
Gleams  of  wisdom  sin-beguiled, 
Sated  power's  tyrannic  mood, 
Counsels  shared  with  men  of  blood, 
Sad  success,  parental  tears, 
And  a  dreary  gift  of  years  "-1 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  excellence  of  such  men  has  a 
charm,  a  kind  of  sensuous  sweetness,  that  is  its  own. 

1  John  Henry  Newman's  "  Call  of  David  ". 


John  Milton.  175 

Being  conscious  of  frailty,  they  are  tender  to  the  imperfect ; 
being  sensitive  to  this  world,  they  sympathise  with  the 
world;  being  familiar  with  all  the  moral  incidents  of  life, 
their  goodness  has  a  richness  and  a  complication :  they 
fascinate  their  own  age,  and  in  their  deaths  they  are  "  not 
divided"  from  the  love  of  others.  Their  peculiar  sensibility 
gives  a  depth  to  their  religion  ;  it  is  at  once  deeper  and 
more  human  than  that  of  other  men.  As  their  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  those  whom  they  have  seen  is  great,  so  it  is 
with  their  knowledge  of  Him  whom  they  have  not  seen ; 
and  as  is  their  knowledge,  so  is  their  love ;  it  is  deep,  from 
their  nature ;  rich  and  intimate,  from  the  variety  of  their 
experience;  chastened  by  the  ever-present  sense  of  their 
weakness  and  of  its  consequences. 

In  extreme  opposition  to  this  is  the  ascetic  species  of 
goodness.  This  is  not,  as  is  sometimes  believed,  a  self- 
produced  ideal — a  simply  voluntary  result  of  discipline  and 
restraint.  Some  men  have  by  nature  what  others  have  to 
elaborate  by  effort.  Some  men  have  a  repulsion  from  the 
world.  All  of  us  have,  in  some  degree,  a  protective  instinct ; 
an  impulse,  that  is  to  say,  to  start  back  from  what  may 
trouble  us,  to  shun  what  may  fascinate  us,  to  avoid  what 
may  tempt  us.  On  the  moral  side  of  human  nature  this 
preventive  check  is  occasionally  imperious ;  it  holds  the 
whole  man  under  its  control,— makes  him  recoil  from  the 
world,  be  offended  at  its  amusements,  be  repelled  by  its 
occupations,  be  scared  by  its  sins.  The  consequences  of 
this  tendency,  when  it  is  thus  in  excess,  upon  the  character 
are  very  great  and  very  singular.  It  secludes  a  man  in  a 
sort  of  natural  monastery ;  he  lives  in  a  kind  of  moral 
solitude;  and  the  effects  of  his  isolation  for  good  and  for 
evil  on  his  disposition  are  very  many.  The  best  result  is  a 
singular  capacity  for  meditative  religion.  Being  aloof  from 
what  is  earthly,  such  persons  are.  shut  up  with  what  is 


176  Literary  Studies. 


spiritual ;  being  unstirred  by  the  incidents  of  time,  they  are 
alone  with  the  eternal ;  rejecting  this  life,  they  are  alone 
with  what  is  beyond.  According  to  the  measure  of  their 
minds,  men  of  this  removed  and  secluded  excellence  become 
eminent  for  a  settled  and  brooding  piety,  for  a  strong  and 
predominant  religion.  In  human  life  too,  in  a  thousand 
ways,  their  isolated  excellence  is  apparent.  They  walk 
through  the  whole  of  it  with  an  abstinence  from  sense,  a 
zeal  of  morality,  a  purity  of  ideal,  which  other  men  have  not. 
Their  religion  has  an  imaginative  grandeur,  and  their  life 
something  of  an  unusual  impeccability.  And  these  are 
obviously  singular  excellences.  But  the  deficiencies  to  which 
the  same  character  tends  are  equally  singular.  In  the  first 
place,  their  isolation  gives  them  a  certain  pride  in  themselves, 
and  an  inevitable  ignorance  of  others.  They  are  secluded 
by  their  constitutional  SaifjLtav  from  life;  they  are  repelled 
from  the  pursuits  which  others  care  for ;  they  are  alarmed 
-•it  the  amusements  which  others  enjoy.  In  consequence, 
they  trust  in  their  own  thoughts  ;  they  come  to  magnify 
both  them  and  themselves — for  being  able  to  think  and  to 
retain  them.  The  greater  the  nature  of  the  man,  the  greater 
is  this  temptation.  His  thoughts  are  greater,  and,  in  con- 
sequence, the  greater  is  his  tendency  to  prize  them,  the 
more  extreme  is  his  tendency  to  overrate  them.  This  pride, 
too,  goes  side  by  side  with  a  want  of  sympathy.  Being 
aloof  from  others,  such  a  mind  is  unlike  others;  and  it  feels, 
and  sometimes  it  feels  bitterly,  its  own  unlikeness.  Gener- 
ally, however,  it  is  too  wrapt  up  in  its  own  exalted  thoughts 
to  be  sensible  of  the  pain  of  moral  isolation  ;  it  stands  apart 
from  others,  unknowing  and  unknown.  It  is  deprived  of  moral 
experience  in  two  ways,  —  it  is  not  tempted  itself,  and  it 
does  not  comprehend  the  temptations  of  others.  And  this 
defect  of  moral  experience  is  almost  certain  to  produce  two 
effects,  one  practical  and  the  other  speculative.  When 


John  Milton.  177 


such  a  man  is  wrong,  he  will  be  apt  to  believe  that  he  is 
right.  If  his  own  judgment  err,  he  will  not  have  the  habit 
of  checking  it  by  the  judgment  of  others;  he  will  be  accus- 
tomed to  think  most  men  wrong ;  differing  from  'them  would 
be  no  proof  of  error,  agreeing  with  them  would  rather  be  a 
basis  for  suspicion.  He  may,  too,  be  very  wrong,  for  the 
conscience  of  no  man  is  perfect  on  all  sides.  The  strange- 
ness of  secluded  excellence  will  be  sometimes  deeply  shaded 
by  very  strange  errors.  To  be  commonly  above  others, 
still  more  to  think  yourself  above  others,  is  to  be  below 
them  every  now  and  then,  and  sometimes  much  below. 
Again,  on  the  speculative  side,  this  defect  of  moral  experi- 
ence penetrates  into  the  distinguishing  excellence  of  the 
character, — its  brooding  and  meditative  religion.  Those 
who  see  life  under  only  one  aspect,  can  see  religion  under 
only  one  likewise.  This  world  is  needful  to  interpret  what 
is  beyond ;  the  seen  must  explain  the  unseen.  It  is  from 
a  tried  and  a  varied  and  a  troubled  moral  life  that  the 
deepest  and  truest  idea  of  God  arises.  The  ascetic  character 
wants  these ;  therefore  in  its  religion  there  will  be  a  harsh- 
ness of  outline,  a  bareness,  so  to  say,  as  well  as  a  grandeur. 
In  life  we  may  look  for  a  singular  purity ;  but  also,  and  with 
equal  probability,  for  singular  self-confidence,  a  certain 
unsympathising  straitness,  and  perhaps  a  few  singular 
errors. 

The  character  of  the  ascetic,  or  austere  species  of  good- 
ness, is  almost  exactly  embodied  in  Milton.  Men,  indeed, 
are  formed  on  no  ideal  type.  Human  nature  has  tendencies 
too  various,  and  circumstances  too  complex.  All  men's 
characters  have  sides  and  aspects  not  to  be  comprehended 
in  a  single  definition ;  but  in  this  case,  the  extent  to  which 
the  character  of  the  man,  as  we  find  it  delineated,  approaches 
to  the  moral  abstraction  which  we  sketch  from  theory,  is 
remarkable.  The  whole  being  of  Milton  may,  in  some 

VOL.    II.  12 


178  Literary  Studies. 


sort,  be  summed  up  in  the  great  commandment  of  the 
austere  character,  "  Reverence  thyself".  We  find  it  ex- 
pressed in  almost  every  one  of  his  singular  descriptions 
of  himself, — of  those  striking  passages  which  are  scattered 
through  all  his  works,  and  which  add  to  whatever  interest 
may  intrinsically  belong  to  them  one  of  the  rarest  of  artistic 
charms,  that  of  magnanimous  autobiography.  They  have 
been  quoted  a  thousand  times,  but  one  of  them  may 
perhaps  be  quoted  again.  "  I  had  my  time,  readers,  as 
others  have,  who  have  good  learning  bestowed  upon  them, 
to  be  sent  to  those  places,  where  the  opinion  was  it  might 
be  soonest  attained  ;  and  as  the  manner  is,  was  not  un- 
studied in  those  authors  which  are  most  commended ; 
whereof  some  were  grave  orators  and  historians,  whose 
matter  methought  I  loved  indeed,  but  as  my  age  then  was, 
so  I  understood  them ;  others  were  the  smooth  elegiac 
poets,  whereof  the  schools  are  not  scarce,  whom  both  for 
the  pleasing  sound  of  their  numerous  writing,  which  in 
imitation  I  found  most  easy,  and  most  agreeable  to  nature's 
part  in  me,  and  for  their  matter,  which  what  it  is,  there  be 
few  who  know  not,  I  was  so  allured  to  read,  that  no  recrea- 
tion came  to  me  better  welcome  :  for  that  it  was  then  those 
years  with  me  which  are  excused,  though  they  be  less 
severe,  I  may  be  saved  the  labour  to  remember  ye.  Whence 
having  observed  them  to  account  it  the  chief  glory  of  their 
wit,  in  that  they  were  ablest  to  judge,  to  praise,  and  by  that 
could  esteem  themselves  worthiest  to  love  those  high  per- 
fections, which  under  one  or  other  name  they  took  to 
celebrate,  I  thought  with  myself  by  every  instinct  and 
presage  of  nature,  which  is  not  wont  to  be  false,  that 
what  emboldened  them  to  this  task,  might  with  such 
diligence  as  they  used  embolden  me ;  and  that  what  judg- 
ment, wit,  or  elegance  was  my  share,  would  herein  best 
appear,  and  best  value  itself,  by  how  much  more  wisely, 


John  Milton.  179 

and  with  more  love  of  virtue  I  should  choose  (let  rude  ears 
be  absent)  the  object  of  not  unlike  praises  :  for  albeit  these 
thoughts  to  some  will  seem  virtuous  and  commendable,  to 
others  only  pardonable,  to  a  third  sort  perhaps  idle  ;  yet  the 
mentioning  of  them  now  will  end  in  serious.  Nor  blame  it, 
readers,  in  those  years  to  propose  to  themselves  such  a  reward, 
as  the  noblest  dispositions  above  other  things  in  this  life  have 
sometimes  preferred  :  whereof  not  to  be  sensible  when  good 
and  fair  in  one  person  meet,  argues  both  a  gross  and  shallow 
judgment,  and  withal  an  ungentle  and  swainish  breast.  For 
by  the  firm  settling  of  these  persuasions,  I  became,  to  my 
best  memory,  so  much  a  proficient,  that  if  I  found  those 
authors  anywhere  speaking  unworthy  things  of  themselves, 
or  unchaste  of  those  names  which  before  they  had  extolled, 
this  effect  is  wrought  with  me,  from  that  time  forward  their 
art  I  still  applauded,  but  the  men  I  deplored  ;  and  above  them 
all,  preferred  the  two  famous  renowners  of  Beatrice  and 
Laura,  who  never  write  but  honour  of  them  to  whom  they 
devote  their  verse,  displaying  sublime  and  pure  thoughts 
without  transgression.  And  long  it  was  not  after,  when  I 
was  confirmed  in  this  opinion,  that  he  who  would  not  be 
frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter  in  laudable  things, 
ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem ;  that  is,  a  composition  and 
pattern  of  the  best  and  honourablest  things ;  not  presuming 
to  sing  high  praises  of  heroic  men,  or  famous  cities,  unless 
he  have  in  himself  the  experience  and  the  practice  of  all  that 
which  is  praiseworthy."  x 

It  may  be  fanciful  to  add,  and  we  may  be  laughed  at,  but 
we  believe  that  the  self-reverencing  propensity  was  a  little 
aided  by  his  singular  personal  beauty.  All  the  describers  of 
his  youth  concur  in  telling  us  that  this  was  very  remarkable. 
Mr.  Masson  has  the  following  account  of  it : — 

1  Apology  for  Smectymnuns. 


180  Literary  Studies. 


"  When  Milton  left  Cambridge  in  July,  1632,  he  was  twenty-three 
years  and  eight  months  old.  In  stature,  therefore,  at  least,  he  was 
already  whatever  he  was  to  be.  '  In  stature,'  he  says  himself  at  a  lattei 
period,  when  driven  to  speak  on  the  subject,  '  I  confess  I  am  not  tall, 
but  still  of  what  is  nearer  to  middle  height  than  to  little  :  and  what  if  I 
were  of  little  ;  of  which  stature  have  often  been  very  great  men  both  in 
peace  and  war — though  why  should  that  be  called  little  which  is  great 
enough  for  virtue  ?  '  ('  Staturd,fateor,non  sum  procerd,  sed  qua  mediocri 
tamen  qudm  parvce  propior  sit ;  sed  quid  si  parvd,  qud  et  summi  sape  turn 
pace  turn  hello  virifnere — quanquam  parva  cur  dicitur,  quce  ad  virtutem 
satis  magna  est  ?  "  )  This  is  precise  enough  ;  but  we  have  Aubrey's 
words  to  the  same  effect :  '  He  was  scarce  so  tall  as  I  am,'  says  Aubrey ; 
to  which,  to  make  it  more  intelligible,  he  appends  the  marginal  note  : — 
'  Qu.  Quot  feet  I  am  high  ?  Resp.  Of  middle  stature  ; ' — i.e.,  Milton  was 
a  little  under  middle  height.  '  He  had  light  brown  hair,'  continues 
Aubrey,— putting  the  word  '  abrown  '  ('  auburn ')  in  the  margin  by  way 
of  synonym  for  '  light  brown  '  ; — '  his  complexion  exceeding  fair  ;  oval 
face  ;  his  eye  a  dark  grey.'  " 

We  are  far  from  accusing  Milton  of  personal  vanity. 
His  character  was  too  enormous,  if  we  may  be  allowed  so  to 
say,  for  a  fault  so  petty.  But  a  little  tinge  of  excessive  self- 
respect  will  cling  to  those  who  can  admire  themselves. 
Ugly  men  are  and  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  their  existence. 
Milton  was  not  so. 

The  peculiarities  of  the  austere  type  of  character  stand 
out  in  Milton  more  remarkably  than  in  other  men  who  par- 
take of  it,  because  of  the  extreme  strength  of  his  nature. 
In  reading  him  this  is  the  first  thing  that  strikes  us.  We 
seem  to  have  left  the  little  world  of  ordinary  writers.  The 
words  of  some  authors  are  said  to  have  "hands  and  feet"; 
they  seem,  that  is,  to  have  a  vigour  and  animation  which 
only  belong  to  things  which  live  and  move.  Milton's  words 
have  not  this  animal  life.  There  is  no  rude  energy  about 
them.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  have,  or  seem  to  have, 
a  soul,  a  spirit  which  other  words  have  not.  He  was  early 
aware  that  what  he  wrote,  "  by  certain  vital  signs  it  had," 


John  Milton.  181 

was  such  as  the  world  would  not  "  willingly  let  die  "-1 
After  two  centuries  we  feel  the  same.  There  is  a  solemn 
and  firm  music  in  the  lines ;  a  brooding  sublimity  haunts 
them ;  the  spirit  of  the  great  writer  moves  over  the  face 
of  the  page.  In  life  there  seems  to  have  been  the  same 
peculiar  strength  that  his  works  suggest  to  us.  His  moral 
tenacity  is  amazing.  He  took  his  own  course,  and  he  kept 
his  own  course ;  and  we  may  trace  in  his  defects  the  same 
characteristics.  "Energy  and  ill-temper,"  some  say,  "are 
the  same  thing;"  and  though  this  is  a  strong  exaggera- 
tion, yet  there  is  a  basis  of  truth  in  it.  People  who  labour 
much  will  be  cross  if  they  do  not  obtain  that  for  which  they 
labour ;  those  who  desire  vehemently  will  be  vexed  if  they 
do  not  obtain  that  which  they  desire.  As  is  the  strength  of 
the  impelling  tendency,  so,  other  things  being  equal,  is  the 
pain  which  it  will  experience  if  it  be  baffled.  Those,  too, 
who  are  set  on  what  is  high  will  be  proportionately  offended 
by  the  intrusion  of  what  is  low.  Accordingly,  Milton  is 
described  by  those  who  knew  him  as  a  "harsh  and  choleric 
man  ".  "  He  had,"  we  are  told,  "  a  gravity  in  his  temper, 
not  melancholy,  or  not  till  the  latter  part  of  his  life, — not 
sour,  not  morose,  not  ill-natured ;  but  a  certain  seventy  of 
mind,  not  condescending  to  little  things ; ''  —  and  this, 
although  his  daughter  remembered  that  he  was  delightful 
company,  the  life  of  conversation,  and  that  he  was  so  "on 
account  of  a  flow  of  subjects  and  an  unaffected  cheerfulness 
and  civility".  Doubtless  this  may  have  been  so  when  he 
was  at  ease,  and  at  home.  But  there  are  unmistakable 
traces  of  the  harsher  tendency  in  almost  all  his  works. 

Some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  ascetic  character  were 

likewise  augmented  by  his  studious  disposition.     This  began 

very  early  in  life,  and  continued  till  the  end.     "  My  father," 

he  says,  "  destined  me  to  the  study  of  polite  literature,  which 

1  Reason  of  Church  Government,  Introduction  to  book  iii. 


182  Literary  Studies. 


I  embraced  with  such  avidity,  that  from  the  twelfth  year  of 
my  age  I  hardly  ever  retired  to  rest  from  my  studies  till 
midnight ;  which  was  the  first  source  of  injury  to  my  eyes, 
to  the  natural  weakness  of  which  were  added  frequent  head- 
aches :  all  of  which  not  retarding  my  eagerness  after  know- 
ledge, he  took  care  to  have  me  instructed," 1  etc.  Every 
page  of  his  works  shows  the  result  of  this  education.  In 
spite  of  the  occupations  of  manhood,  and  the  blindness  and 
melancholy  of  old  age,  he  still  continued  to  have  his  princi- 
pal pleasure  in  that  "  studious  and  select "  reading,  which, 
though  often  curiously  transmuted,  is  perpetually  involved 
in  the  very  texture  of  his  works.  We  need  not  stay  to 
observe  how  a  habit  in  itself  so  austere  conduces  to  the 
development  of  an  austere  character.  Deep  study,  especially 
deep  study  which  haunts  and  rules  the  imagination,  neces- 
sarily removes  men  from  life,  absorbs  them  in  themselves ; 
purifies  their  conduct,  with  some  risk  of  isolating  their 
sympathies  ;  develops  that  loftiness  of  mood  which  is  gifted 
with  deep  inspirations  and  indulged  with  great  ideas,  but 
which  tends  in  its  excess  to  engender  a  contempt  for  others, 
and  a  self-appreciation  which  is  even  more  displeasing 
to  them. 

These  same  tendencies  were  aggravated  also  by  two 
defects  which  are  exceedingly  rare  in  great  English  authors, 
and  which  perhaps  Milton  alone  amongst  those  of  the 
highest  class  is  in  a  remarkable  degree  chargeable  with. 
We  mean  a  deficiency  in  humour,  and  a  deficiency  in  a 
knowledge  of  plain  human  nature.  Probably  when,  after 
the  lapse  of  ages,  English  literature  is  looked  at  in  its 
larger  features  only,  and  in  comparison  with  other  literatures 
which  have  preceded  or  which  may  follow  it,  the  critics  will 
lay  down  that  its  most  striking  characteristic  as  a  whole  is 
its  involution,  so  to  say,  in  life ;  the  degree  to  which  its 
1  Defenslo  Secunda  ;  translated  by  Keightley. 


John  Milton.  183 


book  life  resembles  real  life ;  the  extent  to  which  the 
motives,  dispositions,  and  actions  of  common  busy  persons 
are  represented  in  a  medium  which  would  seem  likely  to 
give  us  peculiarly  the  ideas  of  secluded,  and  the  tendencies 
of  meditative  men.  It  is  but  an  aspect  of  this  fact,  that 
English  literature  abounds, — some  critics  will  say  abounds 
excessively, — with  humour.  This  is  in  some  sense  the  im- 
aginative element  of  ordinary  life, — the  relieving  charm, 
partaking  at  once  of  contrast  and  similitude,  which  gives  a 
human  and  an  intellectual  interest  to  the  world  of  clowns 
and  cottages,  of  fields  and  farmers.  The  degree  to  which 
Milton  is  deficient  in  this  element  is  conspicuous  in  every 
page  of  his  writings  where  its  occurrence  could  be  looked 
for ;  and  if  we  do  not  always  look  for  it,  that  is  because  the 
subjects  of  his  most  remarkable  works  are  on  a  removed 
elevation,  where  ordinary  life,  the  world  of  "  cakes  and  ale," 
is  never  thought  of  and  never  expected.  It  is  in  his  dramas, 
as  we  should  expect,  that  Milton  shows  this  deficiency  the 
most.  "  Citizens  "  never  talk  in  his  pages,  as  they  do  in 
Shakespeare.  We  feel  instinctively  that  Milton's  eye  had 
never  rested  with  the  same  easy  pleasure  on  the  easy,  ordinary, 
shop-keeping  world.  Perhaps,  such  is  the  complication  of 
art,  that  it  is  on  the  most  tragic  occasions  that  we  felt  this  want 
the  most.  It  may  seem  an  odd  theory,  and  yet  we  believe 
it  to  be  a  true  principle,  that  catastrophes  require  a  comic 
element.  We  appear  to  feel  the  same  principle  in  life.  We 
may  read  solemn  descriptions  of  great  events  in  history, — 
say  of  Lord  Strafford's  trial,  and  of  his  marvellous  speech, 
and  his  appeal  to  his  "  saint  in  heaven  "  ;  but  we  comprehend 
the  whole  transaction  much  better  when  we  learn  from  Mr. 
Baillie,  the  eye-witness,  that  people  ate  nuts  and  apples, 
and  talked,  and  laughed  and  betted  on  the  great  question  of 
acquittaUand  condemnation.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand why  this  should  be  so.  It  seems  to  be  a  law  of 


184  Literary  Studies. 


the  imagination,  at  least  in  most  men,  that  it  will  not  bear 
concentration.    It  is  essentially  a  glancing  faculty.    It  goes 
and  comes,  and  comes  and  goes,  and  we  hardly  know  whence 
or  why.     But  we  most  of  us  know  that  when  we  try  to  fix 
it,  in  a  moment  it  passes  away.     Accordingly,  the  proper 
procedure  of  art  is  to  let  it  go  in  such  a  manner  as  to  ensure 
its  coming   back   again.      The   force   of  artistic   contrasts 
effects    exactly   this    result.      Skilfully   disposed    opposites 
suggest  the  notion  of  each  other.    We  realise  more  perfectly 
and  easily  the  great  idea,  the  tragic  conception,  when  we 
are  familiarised  with  its  effects  on  the  minds  of  little  people, 
— with  the  petty  consequences  which  it  causes,  as  well  as 
with  the  enormous  forces  from  which  it  comes.     The  catas- 
trophe of  Samson  Agonistes  discloses  Milton's  imperfect 
mastery   of  this  element  of  effect.     If  ever  there  was  an 
occasion  which  admitted  its  perfect  employment,  it  was  this. 
The  kind  of  catastrophe  is  exactly  that  which  is  sure  to 
strike  and  strike  forcibly  the  minds  of  common  persons.     If 
their  observations  on  the  occasion  were  really  given  to  us, 
we  could   scarcely   avoid    something   rather    comic.      The 
eccentricity,  so  to  speak,  of  ordinary  persons,  shows  itself 
peculiarly  at  such  times,  and  they  say  the  queerest  things. 
Shakespeare  has  exemplified  this  principle  most  skilfully  on 
various  occasions :  it  is  the  sort  of  art  which  is  just  in  his 
way.     His  imagination  always  seems  to  be  floating  between 
the  contrasts  of  things  ;  and  if  his  mind  had  a  resting-place 
that  it  liked,  it  was  this  ordinary  view  of  extraordinary  events. 
Milton  was  under  the  great  obligation  to  use  this  relieving 
principle  of  art  in  the  catastrophe  of  Samson,  because  he 
has  made  every  effort  to  heighten  the  strictly  tragic  element, 
which  requires  that  relief.     His  art,  always  serious,  was 
never  more  serious.     His  Samson  is  not  the  incarnation  of 
physical  strength  which  the  popular  fancy  embodies  in  the 
character;  nor  is  it  the  simple  and  romantic  character  of  the 


John  Milton.  185 

Old  Testament.  On  the  contrary,  Samson  has  become  a 
Puritan  :  the  observations  he  makes  would  have  done  much 
credit  to  a  religious  pikeman  in  Cromwell's  army.  In  con- 
sequence, his  death  requires  some  lightening  touches  to 
make  it  a  properly  artistic  event.  The  pomp  of  seriousness 
becomes  too  oppressive. 

"  At  length  for  intermission  sake  they  led  him 
Between  the  pillars ;  he  his  guide  requested 
(For  so  from  such  as  nearer  stood  we  heard), 
As  over-tired,  to  let  him  lean  a  while 
With  both  his  arms  on  those  two  massy  pillars 
That  to  the  arched  roof  gave  main  support. 
He  unsuspicious  led  him  ;  which  when  Samson 
Felt  in  his  arms,  with  head  a  while  inclined, 
And  eyes  fast  fix'd,  he  stood,  as  one  who  pray'd, 
Or  some  great  matter  in  his  mind  revolved : 
At  last  with  head  erect  thus  cry'd  aloud, 
'  Hitherto,  lords,  what  your  commands  imposed 
I  have  perform'd,  as  reason  was,  obeying, 
Not  without  wonder  or  delight  beheld : 
Now  of  my  own  accord  such  other  trial 
I  mean  to  show  you  of  my  strength,  yet  greater, 
As  with  amaze  shall  strike  all  who  behold.' 
This  utter'd,  straining  all  his  nerves  he  bow'd, 
As  with  the  force  of  winds  and  waters  pent 
When  mountains  tremble,  those  two  massy  pillars 
With  horrible  convulsion  to  and  fro. 
He  tugg'd,  he  shook,  till  down  they  came,  and  drew 
The  whole  roof  after  them,  with  bursts  of  thunder, 
Upon  the  heads  of  all  who  sat  beneath, — 
Lords,  ladies,  captains,  counsellors,  or  priests, 
Their  choice  nobility  and  flower,  not  only 
Of  this,  but  each  Philistian  city  round, 
Met  from  all  parts  to  solemnise  this  feast. 
Samson  with  these  immix'd,  inevitably 
Pull'd  down  the  same  destruction  on  himself; 
The  vulgar  only  'scaped  who  stood  without. 

Chor.  O  dearly-bought  revenge,  yet  glorious  ! 
Living  or  dying  thou  hast  fulfill'd 


1 86  Literary  Studies. 


The  work  for  which  thou  wast  foretold 

To  Israel,  and  now  ly'st  victorious 

Among  thy  slain  self-kill'd 

Not  willingly,  but  tangled  in  the  fold 

Of  dire  necessity,  whose  law  in  death  conjoin'd 

Thee  with  thy  slaughter'd  foes,  in  number  more 

Than  all  thy  life  hath  slain  before." 

This  is  grave  and  fine ;  but  Shakespeare  would  have 
done  it  differently  and  better. 

We  need  not  pause  to  observe  how  certainly  this  defici- 
ency in  humour  and  in  the  delineation  of  ordinary  human 
feeling  is  connected  with  a  recluse,  a  solitary,  and  to  some 
extent  an  unsympathising  life.  If  we  combine  a  certain 
aloofness  from  common  men  with  literary  habits  and  an 
incessantly  studious  musing,  we  shall  at  once  see  how 
powerful  a  force  is  brought  to  bear  on  an  instinctively 
austere  character,  and  how  sure  it  will  be  to  develop  the 
peculiar  tendencies  of  it,  both  good  and  evil.  It  was  to 
no  purpose  that  Milton  seems  to  have  practised  a  sort  of 
professional  study  of  life.  No  man  could  rank  more  highly 
the  importance  to  a  poet  of  an  intellectual  insight  into  all- 
important  pursuits  and  "seemly  arts".  But  it  is  not  by 
the  mere  intellect  that  we  can  take  in  the  daily  occupations 
of  mankind ;  we  must  sympathise  with  them,  and  see 
them  in  their  human  relations.  A  chimney-sweeper,  qua 
chimney-sweeper,  is  not  very  sentimental ;  it  is  in  himself 
that  he  is  so  interesting. 

Milton's  austere  character  is  in  some  sort  the  more 
evident,  because  he  possessed  in  large  measure  a  certain 
relieving  element,  in  which  those  who  are  eminent  in  that 
character  are  very  deficient.  Generally  such  persons  have 
but  obtuse  senses.  We  are  prone  to  attribute  the  purity 
of  their  conduct  to  the  dulness  of  their  sensations.  Milton 
had  no  such  obtuseness.  He  had  every  opportunity  for 


John  Milton.  187 

knowing  "  the  world  of  eye  and  ear  ". J  You  cannot  open 
his  works  without  seeing  how  much  he  did  know  of 
it.  The  austerity  of  his  nature  was  not  caused  by  the 
deficiency  of  his  senses,  but  by  an  excess  of  the  warning 
instinct.  Even  when  he  professed  to  delineate  the  world 
of  sensuous  delight,  this  instinct  shows  itself.  Dr.  Johnson 
thought  he  could  discern  melancholy  in  "  L'Allegro  ".  2  If  he 
had  said  solitariness,  it  would  have  been  correct. 

The  peculiar  nature  of  Milton's  character  is  very  con- 
spicuous in  the  events  of  his  domestic  life,  and  in  the 
views  which  he  took  of  the  great  public  revolutions  of 
his  age.  We  can  spare  only  a  very  brief  space  for  the 
examination  of  either  of  these;  but  we  will  endeavour  to 
say  a  few  words  upon  each  of  them. 

The  circumstances  of  Milton's  first  marriage  are  as 
singular  as  any  in  the  strange  series  of  the  loves  of  the  poets. 
The  scene  opens  with  an  affair  of  business.  Milton's  father, 
as  is  well  known,  was  a  scrivener,  a  kind  of  professional 
money-lender,  then  well  known  in  London ;  and  having 
been  early  connected  with  the  vicinity  of  Oxford,  continued 
afterwards  to  have  pecuniary  transactions  of  a  certain 
nature  with  country  gentlemen  of  that  neighbourhood.  In 
the  course  of  these  he  advanced  £500  to  a  certain  Mr. 
Richard  Powell,  a  squire  of  fair  landed  estate,  residing  at 
Forest  Hill,  which  is  about  four  miles  from  the  city  of 
Oxford.  The  money  was  lent  on  the  nth  of  June,  1627; 
and  a  few  months  afterwards  Mr.  Milton  the  elder  gave  £312 
of  it  to  his  son  the  poet,  who  was  then  a  youth  at  college, 
and  made  a  formal  memorandum  of  the  same  in  the  form 
then  usual,  which  still  exists.  The  debt  was  never  wholly  dis- 
charged ;  for  in  1651  we  find  Milton  declaring  on  oath  that 
he  had  never  received  more  than  £180,  "in  part  satisfaction 
of  his  said  just  and  principal  debt,  with  damages  for  the  same 

1  Wordsworth  •'  "  Tintern  Abbey  ".  -  Life  of  Milton. 


i88  Literary  Studies. 


and  his  costs  of  suit ".  Mr.  Keightley  supposes  him  to 
have  "  taken  many  a  ride  over  to  Forest  Hill "  after  he  left 
Cambridge  and  was  living  at  Horton,  which  is  not  very  far 
distant ;  but  of  course  this  is  only  conjecture.  We  only 
know  that  about  1643  "he  took,"  as  his  nephew  relates, 
"  a  journey  into  the  country,  nobody  about  him  certainly 
knowing  the  reason,  or  that  it  was  more  than  a  journey 
of  recreation.  After  a  month's  stay  he  returns  a  married 
man,  who  set  out  a  bachelor;  his  wife  being  Mary,  the 
eldest  daughter  of  Mr.  Richard  Powell,  then  a  justice  of  the 
peace"  for  the  county  of  Oxford.  The  suddenness  of  the 
event  is  rather  striking ;  but  Philips  was  at  the  time  one  of 
Milton's  pupils,  and  it  is  possible  that  some  pains  may  have 
been  taken  to  conceal  the  love-affair  from  the  "  young 
gentlemen  ".  Still,  as  Philips  was  Milton's  nephew,  he  was 
likely  to  hear  such  intelligence  tolerably  early ;  and  as  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  done  so,  the  denouement  was 
probably  rather  prompt.  At  any  rate,  he  was  certainly 
-married  at  that  time,  and  took  his  bride  home  to  his  house 
in  Aldersgate  Street ;  and  there  was  feasting  and  gaiety 
according  to  the  usual  custom  of  such  events.  A  few  weeks 
after,  the  lady  went  home  to  her  friends,  in  which  there  was 
of  course  nothing  remarkable ;  but  it  is  singular  that  when 
the  natural  limit  of  her  visit  at  home  was  come,  she 
absolutely  refused  to  return  to  her  husband.  The  grounds 
of  so  strange  a  resolution  are  very  difficult  to  ascertain. 
Political  feeling  ran  very  high :  old  Mr.  Powell  adhered  to 
the  side  of  the  king,  and  Milton  to  that  of  the  Parliament ; 
and  this  might  be  fancied  to  have  caused  an  estrangement. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  these  circumstances  must  have  been 
well  known  three  months  before.  Nothing  had  happened 
in  that  quarter  of  a  year  to  change  very  materially  the 
position  of  the  two  parties  in  the  State.  Some  other  cause 
for  Mrs.  Milton's  conduct  must  be  looked  for.  She  herself 


John  Milton.  189 

is  said  to  have  stated  that  she  did  not  like  her  husband's 
"  spare  diet  and  hard  study  ". 1  No  doubt,  too,  she  found 
it  dull  in  London  ;  she  had  probably  always  lived  in  the 
country,  and  must  have  been  quite  unaccustomed  to  the  not 
very  pleasant  scene  in  which  she  found  herself.  Still,  mar  y 
young  ladies  have  married  schoolmasters,  and  many  young 
ladies  have  gone  from  Oxfordshire  to  London ;  and  never- 
theless, no  such  dissolution  of  matrimonial  harmony  is 
known  to  have  occurred. 

The  fact  we  believe  to  be,  that  the  bride  took  a  dislike  to 
her  husband.  We  cannot  but  have  a  suspicion  that  she  did 
not  like  him  before  marriage,  and  that  pecuniary  reasons  had 
their  influence.  If,  however,  Mr.  Powell  exerted  his  paternal 
influence,  it  may  be  admitted  that  he  had  unusual  considera- 
tions to  advance  in  favour  of  the  alliance  he  proposed.  It  is 
not  every  father  whose  creditors  are  handsome  young  gentle- 
men with  fair  incomes.  Perhaps  it  seemed  no  extreme 
tyranny  to  press  the  young  lady  a  little  to  do  that  which 
some  others  might  have  done  without  pressing.  Still,  all 
this  is  but  hypothesis ;  our  evidence  as  to  the  love-affairs  of 
the  time  of  King  Charles  I.  is  but  meagre.  But,  whatever 
the  feelings  of  Miss  Powell  may  have  been,  those  of  Mrs. 
Milton  are  exceedingly  certain.  She  would  not  return  to 
her  husband ;  she  did  not  answer  his  letters ;  and  a 
messenger  whom  he  sent  to  bring  her  back  was  handled 
rather  roughly.  Unquestionably,  she  was  deeply  to  blame, 
by  far  the  most  to  blame  of  the  two.  Whatever  may  be 
alleged  against  him,  is  as  nothing  compared  with  her  offence 
in  leaving  him.  To  defend  so  startling  a  course,  we  must 
adopt  views  of  divorce  even  more  extreme  than  those  which 
Milton  was  himself  driven  to  inculcate  ;  and  whatever  Mrs. 
Milton's  practice  may  have  been,  it  may  be  fairly  conjectured 
that  her  principles  were  strictly  orthodox.  Yet,  if  she  could 

i  Philips. 


I  go  Literary  Studies, 


be  examined  by  a  commission  to  the  ghosts,  she  would 
probably  have  some  palliating  circumstances  to  allege  in 
mitigation  of  judgment.  There  were,  perhaps,  peculiarities 
in  Milton's  character  which  a  young  lady  might  not  im- 
properly dislike.  The  austere  and  ascetic  character  is  of  course 
far  less  agreeable  to  women  than  the  sensuous  and  susceptible. 
The  self-occupation,  the  pride,  the  abstraction  of  the  former 
are  to  the  female  mind  disagreeable  ;  studious  habits  and  un- 
usual self-denial  seem  to  it  purposeless ;  lofty  enthusiasm, 
public  spirit,  the  solitary  pursuit  of  an  elevated  ideal,  are 
quite  out  of  its  way :  they  rest  too  little  on  the  visible  world 
to  be  intelligible,  they  are  too  little  suggested  by  the  daily 
occurrences  of  life  to  seem  possible.  The  poet  in  search  of 
an  imaginary  phantom  has  never  been  successful  with 
women ;  there  are  innumerable  proofs  of  that ;  and  the 
ascetic  moralist  is  even  less  interesting.  A  character  com- 
bined out  of  the  two — and  this  to  some  extent  was  Milton's 
— is  singularly  likely  to  meet  with  painful  failure ;  with  a 
failure  the  more  painful  that  it  could  never  anticipate  6r 
explain  it.  Possibly  he  was  absorbed  in  an  austere  self- 
conscious  excellence  ;  it  may  never  have  occurred  to  him 
that  a  lady  might  prefer  the  trivial  detail  of  daily  happiness. 
Milton's  own  view  of  the  matter  he  has  explained  to  us 
in  his  book  on  divorce  ;  and  it  is  a  very  odd  one.  His 
complaint  was,  that  his  wife  would  not  talk.  What  he 
wished  in  marriage  was  an  "  intimate  and  speaking  help  "  ; 
he  encountered  a  "mute  and  spiritless  mate".  One  of  his 
principal  incitements  to  the  "  pious  necessity  of  divorcing," 
was  an  unusual  deficiency  in  household  conversation.  A 
certain  loquacity  in  their  wives  has  been  the  complaint  of 
various  eminent  men  ;  but  his  domestic  affliction  was  a 
different  one.  The  "  ready  and  reviving  associate,"  whom 
he  had  hoped  to  have  found,  appeared  to  be  a  "  coinhabiting 
mischief,"  who  was  sullen,  and  perhaps  seemed  bored  and 


John  Milton.  191 

tired.  And  at  times  he  is  disposed  to  cast  the  blame  of  his 
misfortune  on  the  uninstructive  nature  of  youthful  virtue. 
The  "  soberest  and  best-governed  men,"  he  says,  are  least 
practised  in  such  affairs,  are  not  very  well  aware  that  "  the 
bashful  muteness  "  of  a  young  lady  "  may  oft-times  hide  the 
unliveliness  and  natural  sloth  which  is  really  unfit  for 
conversation  " ;  and  are  rather  in  too  great  haste  to  light 
the  nuptial  torch  :  whereas  those  "  who  have  lived  most 
loosely,  by  reason  of  their  bold  accustoming,  prove  most 
successful  in  their  matches ;  because  their  wild  affections, 
unsettling  at  will,  have  been  as  so  many  divorces  to  teach 
them  experience".  And  he  rather  wishes  to  infer  that  the 
virtuous  man  should,  in  case  of  mischance,  have  his  resource 
of  divorce  likewise. 

In  truth,  Milton's  book  on  divorce — though  only  contain- 
ing principles  which  he  continued  to  believe  long  after  he 
had  any  personal  reasons  for  wishing  to  do  so— was  clearly 
suggested  at  first  by  the  unusual  phenomena  of  his  first 
marriage.  His  wife  began  by  not  speaking  to  him,  and 
finished  by  running  away  from  him.  Accordingly,  like 
most  books  which  spring  out  of  personal  circumstances,  his 
treatises  on  this  subject  have  a  frankness,  and  a  mastery  of 
detail,  which  others  on  the  same  topic  sometimes  want. 
He  is  remarkably  free  from  one  peculiarity  of  modern  writers 
on  such  matters.  Several  considerate  gentlemen  are  ex- 
tremely anxious  for  the  "  rights  of  women  ".  They  think 
that  women  will  benefit  by  removing  the  bulwarks  which 
the  misguided  experience  of  ages  has  erected  for  their  pro- 
tection. A  migratory  system  of  domestic  existence  might 
suit  Madame  Dudevant,  and  a  few  cases  of  singular  ex- 
ception ;  but  we  cannot  fancy  that  it  would  be,  after  all,  so 
much  to  the  taste  of  most  ladies  as  the  present  more  per- 
manent system.  We  have  some  reminiscence  of  the  stories 
of  the  wolf  and  the  lamb,  when  we  hear  amiable  men 


192  Literary  Studies. 


addressing  a  female  auditory  (in  books,  of  course)  on  the 
advantages  of  a  freer  "  development ".  We  are  perhaps 
wrong,  but  we  cherish  an  indistinct  suspicion  that  an 
indefinite  extension  of  the  power  of  selection  would  rather 
tend  to  the  advantage  of  the  sex  which  more  usually  chooses. 
But  we  have  no  occasion  to  avow  such  opinions  now. 
Milton  had  no  such  modern  views.  He  is  frankly  and 
honestly  anxious  for  the  rights  of  the  man.  Of  the  doctrine 
that  divorce  is  only  permitted  for  the  help  of  wives,  he 
exclaims :  "  Palpably  uxorious !  who  can  be  ignorant  that 
a  woman  was  created  for  man,  and  not  man  for  woman  ? 
What  an  injury  is  it  after  wedlock  to  be  slighted  !  what  to 
be  contended  with  in  point  of  house-rule  who  shall  be  the 
head  ;  not  for  any  parity  of  wisdom,  for  that  were  some- 
thing reasonable,  but  out  of  a  female  pride  !  '  I  suffer  not,' 
saith  St.  Paul,  '  the  woman  to  usurp  authority  over  the 
man.'  If  the  Apostle  could  not  suffer  it,"  he  naturally 
remarks,  "into  what  mould  is  he  mortified  that  can  ?  "  He 
had  a  sincere  desire  to  preserve  men  from  the  society  of 
unsocial  and  unsympathising  women ;  and  that  was  his 
principal  idea. 

His  theory,  to  a  certain  extent,  partakes  of  the  same 
notion.  The  following  passage  contains  a  perspicuous  ex- 
position of  it:  "Moses,  Deut.  xxiv.  i,  established  a  grave 
and  prudent  law,  full  of  moral  equity,  full  of  due  considera- 
tion towards  nature,  that  cannot  be  resisted,  a  law  consent- 
ing with  the  wisest  men  and  civilest  nations ;  that  when  a 
man  hath  married  a  wife,  if  it  come  to  pass  that  he  cannot 
love  her  by  reason  of  some  displeasing  natural  quality  or 
unfitness  in  her,  let  him  write  her  a  bill  of  divorce.  The 
intent  of  which  law  undoubtedly  was  this,  that  if  any  good 
and  peaceable  man  should  discover  some  helpless  disagree- 
ment or  dislike,  either  of  mind  or  body,  whereby  he  could 
not  cheerfully  perform  the  duty  of  a  husband  without  the 


John  Milton.  193 


perpetual  dissembling  of  offence  and  disturbance  to  his 
spirit;  rather  than  to  live  uncomfortably  and  unhappily 
both  to  himself  and  to  his  wife ;  rather  than  to  continue 
undertaking  a  duty,  which  he  could  not  possibly  discharge, 
he  might  dismiss  her,  whom  he  could  not  tolerably,  and  so 
not  conscionably,  retain.  And  this  law  the  Spirit  of  God 
by  the  mouth  of  Solomon,  Prov.  xxx.  21,  23,  testifies  to  be 
a  good  and  a  necessary  law,  by  granting  it  that  '  a  hated 
woman '  (for  so  the  Hebrew  word  signifies,  rather  than 
'odious,'  though  it  come  all  to  one),  that  'a  hated  woman, 
when  she  is  married,  is  a  thing  that  the  earth  cannot  bear'." 
And  he  complains  that  the  civil  law  of  modern  states  inter- 
feres with  the  "  domestical  prerogative  of  the  husband  ". 

His  notion  would  seem  to  have  been  that  a  husband  was 
bound  not  to  dismiss  his  wife,  except  for  a  reason  really 
sufficient;  such  as  a  thoroughly  incompatible  temper,  an 
incorrigible  "  muteness,"  and  a  desertion  like  that  of  Mrs. 
Milton.  But  he  scarcely  liked  to  admit  that,  in  the  use  of 
this  power,  he  should  be  subject  to  the  correction  of  human 
tribunals.  He  thought  that  the  circumstances  of  each  case 
depended  upon  "utterless  facts";  and  that  it  was  practically 
impossible  for  a  civil  court  to  decide  on  a  subject  so  delicate 
in  its  essence,  and  so  imperceptible  in  its  data.  But  though 
amiable  men  doubtless  suffer  much  from  the  deficiencies  of 
their  wives,  we  should  hardly  like  to  entrust  them,  in  their 
own  cases,  with  a  jurisdiction  so  prompt  and  summary. 

We  are  far  from  being  concerned,  however,  just  now 
with  the  doctrine  of  divorce  on  its  intrinsic  merits :  we 
were  only  intending  to  give  such  an  account  of  Milton's 
opinions  upon  it  as  might  serve  to  illustrate  his  character. 
We  think  we  have  shown  that  it  is  possible  there  may  have 
been,  in  his  domestic  relations,  a  little  overweening  pride ; 
a  tendency  to  overrate  the  true  extent  of  masculine  rights, 
and  to  dwell  on  his  wife's  duty  to  be  social  towards  him 
VOL.  ii.  13 


1 94  Literary  Studies. 


rather  than  on  his  duty  to  be  social  towards  her, — to 
be  rather  sullen  whenever  she  was  not  quite  cheerful. 
Still,  we  are  not  defending  a  lady  for  leaving  her  husband 
for  defects  of  such  inferior  magnitude.  Few  households 
would  be  kept  together,  if  the  right  of  transition  were  ex- 
ercised on  such  trifling  occasions.  We  are  but  suggesting 
that  she  may  share  the  excuse  which  our  great  satirist  has 
suggested  for  another  unreliable  lady :  "  My  mother  was  an 
angel ;  but  angels  are  not  always  commodes  a  vivre  ". 

This  is  not  a  pleasant  part  of  our  subject,  and  we  must 
leave  it.  It  is  more  agreeable  to  relate  that  on  no  occasion 
of  his  life  was  the  substantial  excellence  of  Milton's  char- 
acter more  conclusively  shown,  than  in  his  conduct  at  the 
last  stage  of  this  curious  transaction.  After  a  very  con- 
siderable interval,  and  after  the  publication  of  his  book  on 
divorce,  Mrs.  Milton  showed  a  disposition  to  return  to  her 
husband  ;  and,  in  spite  of  his  theories,  he  received  her  with 
open  arms.  With  great  Christian  patience,  he  received  her 
relations  too.  The  Parliamentary  party  was  then  victorious ; 
and  old  Mr.  Powell,  who  had  suffered  very  much  in  the 
cause  of  the  king,  lived  until  his  death  untroubled,  and 
"  wholly  to  his  devotion,"  as  we  are  informed,  in  the  house 
of  his  son-in-law. 

Of  the  other  occurrences  of  Milton's  domestic  life  we 
have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  speak ;  we  must  turn  to 
our  second  source  of  illustration  for  his  character, — his 
opinions  on  the  great  public  events  of  his  time.  It  may  seem 
odd,  but  we  believe  that  a  man  of  austere  character  naturally 
tends  both  to  an  excessive  party  spirit  and  to  an  extreme 
isolation.  Of  course  the  circumstances  which  develop  the 
one  must  be  different  from  those  which  are  necessary  to 
call  out  the  other :  party  spirit  requires  companionship ; 
isolation,  if  we  may  be  pardoned  so  original  a  remark 
excludes  it.  But  though,  as  we  have  shown,  this  species  of 


John  Milton.  195 


character  is  prone  to  mental  solitude,  tends  to  an  intellectual 
isolation  where  it  is  possible  and  as  soon  as  it  can,  yet  when 
invincible  circumstances  throw  it  into  mental  companion- 
ship, when  it  is  driven  into  earnest  association  with  earnest 
men  on  interesting  topics,  its  zeal  becomes  excessive.  Such 
a  man's  mind  is  at  home  only  with  its  own  enthusiasm  ;  it 
is  cooped  up  within  the  narrow  limits  of  its  own  ideas,  and 
it  can  make  no  allowance  for  those  who  differ  from  or  oppose 
them.  We  may  see  something  of  this  excessive  party  zeal 
in  Burke.  No  one's  reasons  are  more  philosophical ;  yet  no 
one  who  acted  with  a  party  went  further  in  aid  of  it  or  was 
more  violent  in  support  of  it.  He  forgot  what  could  be  said 
for  the  tenets  of  the  enemy;  his  imagination  made  that 
enemy  an  abstract  incarnation  of  his  tenets.  A  man,  too, 
who  knows  that  he  formed  his  opinions  originally  by  a 
genuine  and  intellectual  process,  is  but  little  aware  of  the 
undue  energy  those  ideas  may  obtain  from  the  concurrence 
of  those  around.  Persons  who  first  acquired  their  ideas  at 
second-hand  are  more  open  to  a  knowledge  of  their  own 
weakness,  and  better  acquainted  with  the  strange  force 
which  there  is  in  the  sympathy  of  others.  The  isolated 
mind,  when  it  acts  with  the  popular  feeling,  is  apt  to  ex- 
aggerate that  feeling  for  the  most  part  by  an  almost  inevit- 
able consequence  of  the  feelings  which  render  it  isolated. 
Milton  is  an  example  of  this  remark.  In  the  commence- 
ment of  the  struggle  between  Charles  I.  and  the  Parliament, 
he  sympathised  strongly  with  the  popular  movement,  and 
carried  to  what  seems  now  a  strange  extreme  his  partisan- 
ship. No  one  could  imagine  that  the  first  literary  English- 
man of  his  time  could  write  the  following  passage  on 
Charles  I.  :— 

"  Who  can  with  patience  hear  this  filthy,  rascally  Fool 
speak  so  irreverently  of  Persons  eminent  both  in  Greatness 
and  Piety  ?  Dare  you  compare  King  David  with  King 


196  Literary  Studies. 


Charles ;  a  most  Religious  King  and  Prophet,  with  a 
Superstitious  Prince,  and  who  was  but  a  Novice  in  the 
Christian  Religion  ;  a  most  prudent,  wise  Prince  with  a 
weak  one ;  a  valiant  Prince  with  a  cowardly  one ;  finally, 
a  most  just  Prince  with  a  most  unjust  one  ?  Have  you  the 
impudence  to  commend  his  Chastity  and  Sobriety,  who  is 
known  to  have  committed  all  manner  of  Leudness  in  com- 
pany with  his  Confident  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  ?  It 
were  to  no  purpose  to  inquire  into  the  private  Actions  of  his 
Life,  who  publickly  at  Plays  would  embrace  and  kiss  the 
Ladies."  1 

Whatever  may  be  the  faults  of  that  ill-fated  monarch — 
and  they  assuredly  were  not  small — no  one  would  now  think 
this  absurd  invective  to  be  even  an  excusable  exaggeration. 
It  misses  the  true  mark  altogether,  and  is  the  expression  of 
a  strongly  imaginative  mind,  which  has  seen  something 
that  it  did  not  like,  and  is  unable  in  consequence  to  see  any- 
thing that  has  any  relation  to  it  distinctly  or  correctly. 
But  with  the  supremacy  of  the  Long  Parliament  Milton's 
attachment  to  their  cause  ceased.  No  one  has  drawn  a 
more  unfavourable  picture  of  the  rule  which  they  established. 
Years  after  their  supremacy  had  passed  away,  and  the 
restoration  of  the  monarchy  had  covered  with  a  new  and 
strange  scene  the  old  actors  and  the  old  world,  he  thrust  into  a 
most  unlikely  part  of  his  History  of  England  the  following 
attack  on  them  : — 

"  But  when  once  the  superficiall  zeal  and  popular  fumes 
that  acted  their  New  Magistracy  were  cool'd  and  spent  in 
them,  strait  every  one  betook  himself  (setting  the  Common- 
wealth behind,  his  privat  ends  before)  to  doe  as  his  own 
profit  or  ambition  ledd  him.  Then  was  justice  delay'd,  and 
soon  after  deni'd :  spight  and  favour  determin'd  all :  hence 
faction,  thence  treachery,  both  at  home  and  in  the  field  : 
J  Defence  of  the  People  of  England,  chap.  iv. 


John  Milton-.  197 

ev'ry  where  wrong,  and  oppression  :  foull  and  horrid  deeds 
committed  daily,  or  maintain'd,  in  secret,  or  in  open.  Som 
who  had  bin  call'd  from  shops  and  warehouses,  without 
other  merit,  to  sit  in  Supreme  Councills  and  Committees 
as  thir  breeding  was,  fell  to  huckster  the  Commonwealth. 
Others  did  therafter  as  men  could  soothe  and  humour  them 
best;  so  hee  who  would  give  most,  or,  under  covert  of 
hypocriticall  zeale,  insinuat  basest,  enjoy'd  unworthily  the 
rewards  of  lerning  and  fidelity ;  or  escap'd  the  punishment 
of  his  crimes  and  misdeeds.  Thir  Votes  and  Ordinances, 
which  men  looked  should  have  contain'd  the  repealing  of 
bad  laws,  and  the  immediat  constitution  of  better,  resounded 
with  nothing  els,  but  new  Impositions,  Taxes,  Excises ; 
yeerly,  monthly,  weekly.  Not  to  reckon  the  Offices,  Gifts, 
and  Preferments  bestow'd  and  shar'd  among  themselves." 

His  dislike  of  this  system  of  committees,  and  of  the 
generally  dull  and  unemphatic  administration  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, attached  him  to  the  Puritan  army  and  to 
Cromwell ;  but  in  the  continuation  of  the  passage  we  have 
referred  to,  he  expresses,  with  something,  let  it  be  said,  of 
a  schoolmaster  feeling,  an  unfavourable  judgment  on  their 
career. 

"  For  Britan,  to  speak  a  truth  not  oft'n  spok'n,  as  it 
is  a  Land  fruitful  enough  of  men  stout  and  courageous  in 
warr,  soe  it  is  naturally  not  over-fertill  of  men  able  to 
govern  justly  and  prudently  in  peace,  trusting  onely  in  thir 
Motherwit ;  who  consider  not  justly,  that  civility,  prudence, 
love  of  the  Publick  good,  more  then  of  money  or  vaine 
honour,  are  to  this  soile  in  a  manner  outlandish ;  grow  not 
here,  but  in  mindes  well  implanted  with  solid  and  elaborat 
breeding,  too  impolitic  els  and  rude,  if  not  headstrong  and 
intractable  to  the  industry  and  vertue  either  of  executing  or 
understanding  true  Civill  Government.  Valiant  indeed, 
and  prosperous  to  win  a  field ;  but  to  know  the  end  and 


Literary  Studies. 


reason  of  winning,  unjudicious,  and  unwise :  in  good  or 
bad  succes,  alike  unteachable.  For  the  Sun,  which  wee 
want,  ripens  wits  as  well  as  fruits ;  and  as  Wine  and  Oil 
are  imported  to  us  from  abroad,  soe  must  ripe  understanding, 
and  many  Civill  Vertues,  be  imported  into  our  mindes  from 
Foren  Writings,  and  examples  of  best  Ages;  we  shall  els 
miscarry  still,  and  com  short  in  the  attempts  of  any  great 
enterprise.  Hence  did  thir  Victories  prove  as  fruitles,  as 
thir  Losses  dang'rous;  and  left  them  still  conq'ring  under 
the  same  greevances,  that  Men  suffer  conquer'd  :  which  was 
indeed  unlikely  to  goe  otherwise,  unles  Men  more  then 
vulgar  bred  up,  as  few  of  them  were,  in  the  knowledg  of 
antient  and  illustrious  deeds,  invincible  against  many  and 
vaine  Titles,  impartial  to  Freindships  and  Relations,  had 
conducted  thir  Affairs :  but  then  from  the  Chapman  to  the 
Retailer,  many  whose  ignorance  was  more  audacious  then 
the  rest,  were  admitted  with  all  thir  sordid  Rudiments  to 
bear  no  meane  sway  among  them,  both  in  Church  and 
State." 

We  need  not  speak  of  Milton's  disapprobation  of  the 
Restoration.  Between  him  and  the  world  of  Charles  II. 
the  opposition  was  inevitable  and  infinite.  Therefore  the 
general  fact  remains,  that  except  in  the  early  struggles, 
when  he  exaggerated  the  popular  feeling,  he  remained 
solitary  in  opinion,  and  had  very  little  sympathy  with  any 
of  the  prevailing  parties  of  his  time. 

Milton's  own  theory  of  government  is  to  be  learned 
from  his  works.  He  advocated  a  free  commonwealth, 
without  rule  of  a  single  person,  or  House  of  Lords :  but 
the  form  of  his  projected  commonwealth  was  peculiar. 
He  thought  that  a  certain  perpetual  council,  which  should 
be  elected  by  the  nation  once  for  all,  and  the  number  of 
which  should  be  filled  up  as  vacancies  might  occur,  was 
the  best  possible  machine  of  government.  He  did  not 


John  Milton.  igg 

confine  his  advocacy  to  abstract  theory,  but  proposed  the 
immediate  establishment  of  such  a  council  in  this  country. 
We  need  not  go  into  an  elaborate  discussion  to  show 
the  errors  of  this  conclusion.  Hardly  any  one,  then  or 
since,  has  probably  adopted  it.  The  interest  of  the 
theoretical  parts  of  Milton's  political  works  is  entirely 
historical.  The  tenets  advocated  are  not  of  great  value, 
and  the  arguments  by  which  he  supports  them  are  perhaps 
of  less ;  but  their  relation  to  the  times  in  which  they  were 
written  gives  them  a  very  singular  interest.  The  time  of 
the  Commonwealth  was  the  only  period  in  English  history 
in  which  the  fundamental  questions  of  government  have 
been  thrown  open  for  popular  discussion  in  this  country. 
We  read  in  French  literature  discussions  on  the  advisability 
of  establishing  a  monarchy,  on  the  advisability  of  establish- 
ing a  republic,  on  the  advisability  of  establishing  an  empire ; 
and,  before  we  proceed  to  examine  the  arguments,  we 
cannot  help  being  struck  at  the  strange  contrast  which 
this  multiplicity  of  open  questions  presents  to  our  own 
uninquiring  acquiescence  in  the  hereditary  polity  which  has 
descended  to  us.  "  King,  Lords,  and  Commons "  are,  we 
think,  ordinances  of  nature.  Yet  Milton's  political  writings 
embody  the  reflections  of  a  period  when,  for  a  few  years, 
the  government  of  England  was  nearly  as  much  a  subject 
of  fundamental  discussion  as  that  of  France  was  in  1851. 
An  "  invitation  to  thinkers,"  to  borrow  the  phrase  of 
Neckar,  was  given  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time ;  and, 
with  the  habitual  facility  of  philosophical  speculation,  it 
was  accepted,  and  used  to  the  utmost. 

Such  are  not  the  kind  of  speculations  in  which  we  expect 
assistance  from  Milton.  It  is  not  in  its  transactions  with 
others,  in  its  dealings  with  the  manifold  world,  that  the 
isolated  and  austere  mind  shows  itself  to  the  most  advantage. 
Its  strength  lies  in  itself.  It  has  "  a  calm  and  pleasing 


2OO  Literary  Studies. 


solitariness  ".  It  hears  thoughts  which  others  cannot  hear. 
It  enjoys  the  quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful  studies  ;  and  is 
ever  conscious  of  such  musing  and  poetry  "  as  is  not  to  be 
obtained  by  the  invocation  of  Dame  Memory  and  her  twin 
daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer  to  that  Eternal  Spirit,  who 
can  enrich  with  all  utterance  and  knowledge,  and  sends  out 
His  Seraphim  with  the  hallowed  fire  of  His  altar". 

"  Descend  from  Heav'n,  Urania,  by  that  name 
If  rightly  thou  art  call'd,  whose  voice  divine 
Following,  above  th'  Olympian  hill  I  soar, 
Above  the  flight  of  Pegasean  wing. 
The  meaning,  not  the  name,  I  call ;  for  thou 
Nor  of  the  Muses  nine,  nor  on  the  top 
Of  old  Olympus  dwell'st,  but  heav'nly  born  : 
Before  the  hills  appear'd,  or  fountain  flow'd, 
Thou  with  eternal  Wisdom  didst  converse, 
Wisdom  thy  sister,  and  with  her  didst  play 
In  presence  of  th'  Almighty  Father,  pleased 
With  thy  celestial  song.     Up  led  by  thee 
Into  the  Heav'n  of  Heav'ns  I  have  presumed, 
An  earthly  guest,  and  drawn  empyreal  air, 
Thy  temp'ring.     With  like  safety  guided  down, 
Return  me  to  my  native  element  ; 
Lest  from  this  flying  steed,  unrein'd  (as  once 
Bellerophon,  though  from  a  lower  clime), 
Dismounted,  on  th'  Aleian  field  I  fall 
Erroneous  there  to  wander  and  forlorn. 
Half  yet  remains  unsung,  but  narrower  bound 
Within  the  visible  diurnal  sphere  ; 
Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  pole, 
More  safe  I  sing  with  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fall'n  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fall'n,  and  evil  tongues  ; 
In  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compass'd  round 
And  solitude  ;  yet  not  alone,  while  thou 
Visit'st  my  slumbers  nightly,  or  when  morn 
Purples  the  east :  still  govern  thou  my  song, 
Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few  ; 


John  Milton.  261 

But  drive  far  off  the  barb'rous  dissonance 
Of  Bacchus  and  his  revellers,  the  race 
Of  that  wild  rout  that  tore  the  Thracian  bard 
In  Rhodope,  where  woods  and  rocks  had  ears 
To  rapture,  till  the  savage  clamour  drown 'd 
Both  harp  and  voice  ;  nor  could  the  Muse  defend 
Her  son.     So  fail  not  thou,  who  thee  implores  ; 
For  thou  art  heav'nly,  she  an  empty  dream." x 

"  An  ancient  clergyman  of  Dorsetshire,  Dr.  Wright, 
found  John  Milton  in  a  small  chamber  hung  with  rusty 
green,  sitting  in  an  elbow-chair,  and  dressed  neatly  in  black: 
pale,  but  not  cadaverous."  "  He  used  also  to  sit  in  a  grey 
coarse  cloth  coat  at  the  door  of  his  house  near  Bunhill 
Fields,  in  warm,  sunny  weather  ;  "  2  and  the  common  people 
said  he  was  inspired. 

If  from  the  man  we  turn  to  his  works,  we  are  struck  at 
once  with  two  singular  contrasts.  The  first  of  them  is  this. 
The  distinction  between  ancient  and  modern  art  is  some- 
times said,  and  perhaps  truly,  to  consist  in  the  simple 
bareness  of  the  imaginative  conceptions  which  we  find  in 
ancient  art,  and  the  comparatively  complex  clothing  in 
which  all  modern  creations  are  embodied.  If  we  adopt 
this  distinction,  Milton  seems  in  some  sort  ancient,  and 
in  some  sort  modern.  Nothing  is  so  simple  as  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  works.  The  two  greatest  of  his  creations, 
the  character  of  Satan  and  the  character  of  Eve,  are  two  of 
the  simplest  —  the  latter  probably  the  very  simplest  —  in 
the  whole  field  of  literature.  On  this  side  Milton's  art  is 
classical.  On  the  other  hand,  in  no  writer  is  the  imagery 
more  profuse,  the  illustrations  more  various,  the  dress 
altogether  more  splendid.  And  in  this  respect  the  style 
of  his  art  seems  romantic  and  modern.  In  real  truth, 
however,  it  is  only  ancient  art  in  a  modern  disguise.  The 

1  "  Paradise  Lost,"  book  vii.          .  2  Richardson. 


202  Literary  Studies. 


dress  is  a  mere  dress,  and  can  be  stripped  off  when  we  will. 
We  all  of  us  do  perhaps  in  memory  strip  it  off  ourselves. 
Notwithstanding  the  lavish  adornments  with  which  her 
image  is  presented,  the  character  of  Eve  is  still  the  simplest 
sort  of  feminine  essence  —  the  pure  embodiment  of  that 
inner  nature,  which  we  believe  and  hope  that  women  have. 
The  character  of  Satan,  though  it  is  not  so  easily  described, 
has  nearly  as  few  elements  in  it.  The  most  purely  modern 
conceptions  will  not  bear  to  be  unclothed  in  this  matter. 
Their  romantic  garment  clings  inseparably  to  them. 
Hamlet  and  Lear  are  not  to  be  thought  of  except  as 
complex  characters,  with  very  involved  and  complicated 
embodiments.  They  are  as  difficult  to  draw  out  in  words 
as  the  common  characters  of  life  are ;  that  of  Hamlet, 
perhaps,  is  more  so.  If  we  make  it,  as  perhaps  we  should, 
the  characteristic  of  modern  and  romantic  art  that  it 
presents  us  with  creations  which  we  cannot  think  of  or 
delineate  except  as  very  varied,  and,  so  to  say,  circum- 
stantial, we  must  not  rank  Milton  among  the  masters  of 
romantic  art.  And  without  involving  the  subject  in  the 
troubled  sea  of  an  old  controversy,  we  may  say  that  the 
most  striking  of  the  poetical  peculiarities  of  Milton  is  the 
bare  simplicity  of  his  ideas,  and  the  rich  abundance  of  his 
illustrations. 

Another  of  his  peculiarities  is  equally  striking.  There 
seems  to  be  such  a  thing  as  second-hand  poetry.  Some 
poets,  musing  on  the  poetry  of  other  men,  have  uncon- 
sciously shaped  it  into  something  of  their  own :  the  new 
conception  is  like  the  original,  it  would  never  probably 
have  existed  had  not  the  original  existed  previously;  still 
it  is  sufficiently  different  from  the  original  to  be  a  new 
thing,  not  a  copy  or  a  plagiarism ;  it  is  a  creation,  though, 
so  to  say,  a  suggested  creation.  Gray  is  as  good  an  example 
as  can  be  found  of  a  poet  whose  works  abound  in  this 


John  Milton.  203 

species  of  semi-original  conceptions.  Industrious  critics 
track  his  best  lines  back,  and  find  others  like  them  which 
doubtless  lingered  near  his  fancy  while  he  was  writing 
them.  The  same  critics  have  been  equally  busy  with  the 
works  of  Milton,  and  equally  successful.  They  find  traces 
of  his  reading  in  half  his  works ;  not,  which  any  reader 
could  do,  in  overt  similes  and  distinct  illustrations,  but  also 
in  the  very  texture  of  the  thought  and  the  expression.  In 
many  cases,  doubtless,  they  discover  more  than  he  himself 
knew.  A  mind  like  his,  which  has  an  immense  store  of  im- 
aginative recollections,  can  never  know  which  of  his  own 
imaginations  is  exactly  suggested  by  which  recollection. 
Men  awake  with  their  best  ideas ;  it  is  seldom  worth 
while  to  investigate  very  curiously  whence  they  came. 
Our  proper  business  is  to  adapt,  and  mould,  and  act  upon 
them.  Of  poets  perhaps  this  is  true  even  more  remark- 
ably than  of  other  men  ;  their  ideas  are  suggested  in 
modes,  and  according  to  laws,  which  are  even  more  im- 
possible to  specify  than  the  ideas  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Second-hand  poetry,  so  to  say,  often  seems  quite  original 
to  the  poet  himself;  he  frequently  does  not  know  that  he 
derived  it  from  an  old  memory  ;  years  afterwards  it  may 
strike  him  as  it  does  others.  Still,  in  general,  such  inferior 
species  of  creation  is  not  so  likely  to  be  found  in  minds  of 
singular  originality  as  in  those  of  less.  A  brooding,  placid, 
cultivated  mind,  like  that  of  Gray,  is  the  place  where  we 
should  expect  to  meet  with  it.  Great  originality  disturbs 
the  adaptive  process,  removes  the  mind  of  the  poet  from 
the  thoughts  of  other  men,  and  occupies  it  with  its  own 
heated  and  flashing  thoughts.  Poetry  of  the  second  de- 
gree is  like  the  secondary  rocks  of  modern  geology — a  still, 
gentle,  alluvial  formation  ;  the  igneous  glow  of  primary 
genius  brings  forth  ideas  like  the  primeval  granite,  simple, 
astounding,  and  alone.  Milton's  case  is  an  exception  to 


264  Literary  Studies. 


this  rule.  His  mind  has  marked  originality,  probably  as 
much  of  it  as  any  in  literature;  but  it  has  as  much  of 
moulded  recollection  as  any  mind  too.  His  poetry  in  con- 
sequence is  like  an  artificial  park,  green,  and  soft,  and 
beautiful,  yet  with  outlines  bold,  distinct,  and  firm,  and 
the  eternal  rock  ever  jutting  out ;  or,  better  still,  it  is  like 
our  own  Lake  scenery,  where  Nature  has  herself  the  same 
combination — where  we  have  Rydal  Water  side  by  side  with 
the  everlasting  upheaved  mountain.  Milton  has  the  same 
union  of  softened  beauty  with  unimpaired  grandeur;  and 
it  is  his  peculiarity. 

These  are  the  two  contrasts  which  puzzle  us  at  first  in 
Milton,  and  which  distinguish  him  from  other  poets  in  our 
remembrance  afterwards.  We  have  a  superficial  complexity 
in  illustration,  and  imagery,  and  metaphor ;  and  in  contrast 
with  it  we  observe  a  latent  simplicity  of  idea,  an  almost 
rude  strength  of  conception.  The  underlying  thoughts  are 
few,  though  the  flowers  on  the  surface  are  so  many.  We 
have  likewise  the  perpetual  contrast  of  the  soft  poetry  of 
the  memory,  and  the  firm,  as  it  were  fused,  and  glowing 
poetry  of  the  imagination.  His  words,  we  may  half  fanci- 
fully say,  are  like  his  character.  There  is  the  same  austerity 
in  the  real  essence,  the  same  exquisiteness  of  sense,  the 
same  delicacy  of  form  which  we  know  that  he  had,  the 
same  music  which  we  imagine  there  was  in  his  voice.  In 
both  his  character  and  his  poetry  there  was  an  ascetic  nature 
in  a  sheath  of  beauty. 

No  book  perhaps  which  has  ever  been  written  is  more 
difficult  to  criticise  than  "Paradise  Lost".  The  only  way  to 
criticise  a  work  of  the  imagination,  is  to  describe  its  effect 
upon  the  mind  of  the  reader — at  any  rate,  of  the  critic  ;  and 
this  can  only  be  adequately  delineated  by  strong  illustrations, 
apt  similes,  and  perhaps  a  little  exaggeration.  The  task  is 
in  its  very  nature  not  an  easy  one ;  the  poet  paints  a  picture 


John  Milton,  205 


on  the  fancy  of  the  critic,  and  the  critic  has  in  some  sort  to 
copy  it  on  the  paper.  He  must  say  what  it  is  before  he  can 
make  remarks  upon  it.  But  in  the  case  of  "Paradise  Lost" 
we  hardly  like  to  use  illustrations.  The  subject  is  one  which 
the  imagination  rather  shrinks  from.  At  any  rate,  it  requires 
courage,  and  an  effort  to  compel  the  mind  to  view  such  a 
subject  as  distinctly  and  vividly  as  it  views  other  subjects. 
Another  peculiarity  of  "  Paradise  Lost "  makes  the  difficulty 
even  greater.  It  does  not  profess  to  be  a  mere  work  of  art ; 
or  rather,  it  claims  to  be  by  no  means  that,  and  that  only. 
It  starts  with  a  dogmatic  aim  ;  it  avowedly  intends  to 

"  assert  eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man  ". 

In  this  point  of  view  we  have  always  had  a  sympathy  with 
the  Cambridge  mathematician  who  has  been  so  much  abused. 
He  said,  "After  all,  'Paradise  Lost'  proves  nothing";  and 
various  persons  of  poetical  tastes  and  temperament  have 
been  very  severe  on  the  prosaic  observation.  Yet,  "  after 
all,"  he  was  right.  Milton  professed  to  prove  something. 
He  was  too  profound  a  critic — rather,  he  had  too  profound 
an  instinct  of  those  eternal  principles  of  art  which  criticism 
tries  to  state — not  to  know  that  on  such  a  subject  he  must 
prove  something.  He  professed  to  deal  with  the  great 
problem  of  human  destiny ;  to  show  why  man  was  created, 
in  what  kind  of  universe  he  lives,  whence  he  came,  and 
whither  he  goes.  He  dealt  of  necessity  with  the  greatest 
of  subjects.  He  had  to  sketch  the  greatest  of  objects.  He 
was  concerned  with  infinity  and  eternity  even  more  than 
with  time  and  sense ;  he  undertook  to  delineate  the  ways, 
and  consequently  the  character  of  Providence,  as  well  as 
the  conduct  and  the  tendencies  of  man.  The  essence  of 
success  in  such  an  attempt  is  to  satisfy  the  religious  sense 
of  man  ;  to  bring  home  to  our  hearts  what  we  know  to  be 


206  Literary  Studies. 


true  ;  to  teach  us  what  we  have  not  seen ;  to  awaken  us  to 
what  we  have  forgotten  ;  to  remove  the  "  covering"  from  all 
people,  and  the  "  veil "  that  is  spread  over  all  nations ;  to 
give  us,  in  a  word,  such  a  conception  of  things  divine  and 
human  as  we  can  accept,  believe  and  trust.  The  true  doctrine 
of  criticism  demands  what  Milton  invites — an  examination 
of  the  degree  in  which  the  great  epic  attains  this  aim.  And 
if,  in  examining  it,  we  find  it  necessary  to  use  unusual  illus- 
trations, and  plainer  words  than  are  customary,  it  must  be 
our  excuse  that  we  do  not  think  the  subject  can  be  made 
clear  without  them. 

The  defect  of  "  Paradise  Lost "  is  that,  after  all,  it  is 
founded  on  a  political  transaction.  The  scene  is  in  heaven 
very  early  in  the  history  of  the  universe,  before  the  creation 
of  man  or  the  fall  of  Satan.  We  have  a  description  of  a 
court.  The  angels, 

"  By  imperial  summons  called," 
appear 

"  Under  their  hierarchs  in  orders  bright : 
Ten  thousand  thousand  ensigns  high  advanced, 
Standards  and  gonfalons  'twixt  van  and  rear 
Stream  in  the  air,  and  for  distinction  serve 
Of  hierarchies,  and  orders,  and  degrees  ". 

To  this  assemblage  "th"  Omnipotent"  speaks: — • 

"  Hear,  all  ye  Angels,  progeny  of  light, 

Thrones,  Dominations,  Princedoms,  Virtues,  Pow'rs, 

Hear  my  decree,  which  unrevoked  shall  stand : 

This  day  I  have  begot  whom  I  declare 

My  only  Son  ;  and  on  this  holy  hill 

Him  have  anointed,  whom  ye  now  behold 

At  my  right  hand ;  your  Head  I  him  appoint ; 

And  by  myself  have  sworn,  to  him  shall  bow 

All  knees  in  Heav'n,  and  shall  confess  hirq  Lord : 

Under  his  great  vicegerent  reign  abide 


John  Milton.  207 

United  as  one  individual  soul 
For  ever  happy.     Him  who  disobeys, 
Me  disobeys,  breaks  union,  and  that  day, 
Cast  out  from  God  and  blessed  vision,  falls 
Int'  utter  darkness,  deep  ingulph'd,  his  place 
Ordain'd  without  redemption,  without  end." 

This  act  of  patronage  was  not  popular  at  court;  and  why 
should  it  have  been  ?  The  religious  sense  is  against  it. 
The  worship  which  sinful  men  owe  to  God  is  not  transfer- 
able to  lieutenants  and  vicegerents.  The  whole  scene  of 
the  court  jars  upon  a  true  feeling.  We  seem  to  be  reading 
about  some  emperor  of  history,  who  admits  his  son  to  a 
share  in  the  empire,  who  confers  on  him  a  considerable 
jurisdiction,  and  requires  officials,  with  "standards  and 
gonfalons,"  to  bow  before  him.  The  orthodoxy  of  Milton 
is  quite  as  questionable  as  his  accuracy.  The  old  Atha- 
nasian  creed  was  not  made  by  persons  who  would  allow  such 
a  picture  as  that  of  Milton  to  stand  before  their  imagina- 
tions. The  generation  of  the  Son  was  to  them  a  fact  "  be- 
fore all  time  "  ;  an  eternal  fact.  There  was  no  question  in 
their  minds  of  patronage  or  promotion.  The  Son  was  the 
Son  before  all  time,  just  as  the  Father  was  the  Father  before 
all  time.  Milton  had  in  such  matters  a  bold  but  not  very 
sensitive  imagination.  He  accepted  the  inevitable  material- 
ism of  biblical,  and,  to  some  extent,  of  all  religious  language 
as  distinct  revelation.  He  certainly  believed,  in  contradic- 
tion to  the  old  creed,  that  God  had  both  "parts  and  passions"' 
He  imagined  that  earth 

"  Is  but  the  shadow  of  heaven  and  things  therein, 
Each  to  other  like  more  than  on  earth  is  thought  ".1 

From  some  passages  it  would  seem  that  he  actually  thought 
of  God    as   having  "the  members  and   form"  of  a  man. 

1  Book  v.,  "  Raphael  to  Adam  ". 


208  Literary  Studies. 


Naturally,  therefore,  he  would  have  no  toleration  for  the 
mysterious  notions  of  time  and  eternity  which  are  involved 
in  the  traditional  doctrine.  We  are  not,  however,  now  con- 
cerned with  Milton's  belief,  but  with  his  representation  of 
his  creed — his  picture,  so  to  say,  of  it  in  "  Paradise  Lost "  ; 
still,  as  we  cannot  but  think,  that  picture  is  almost  irreligious, 
and  certainly  different  from  that  which  has  been  generally 
accepted  in  Christendom.  Such  phrases  as  "before  all  time," 
"eternal  generation,"  are  doubtless  very  vaguely  interpreted 
by  the  mass  of  men ;  nevertheless,  no  sensitively  orthodox 
man  could  have  drawn  the  picture  of  a  generation,  not  to 
say  an  exaltation,  in  time. 

We  shall  see  this  more  clearly  by  reading  what  follows 
in  the  poem  : — 

"  All  seemed  well  pleased ;  all  seemed,  but  were  not  all ". 

One  of  the  archangels,  whose  name  can  be  guessed,  de- 
cidedly disapproved,  and  calls  a  meeting,  at  which  he  ex- 
plains that 

"orders  and  degrees 
Jar  not  with  liberty,  but  well  consist "  ; 

but  still,  that  the  promotion  of  a  new  person,  on  grounds  of 
relationship  merely,  above,  even  infinitely  above,  the  old 
angels,  with  imperial  titles,  was  "  a  new  law,"  and  rather 
tyrannical.  Abdiel, 

"  than  whom  none  with  more  zeal  adored 
The  Deity,  and  with  divine  commands  obeyed," 

attempts  a  defence : 

"  Grant  it  thee  unjust, 
That  equal  over  equals  monarch  reign : 
Thyself,  though  great  and  glorious,  dost  thou  count, 
Or  all  angelic  nature  join'd  in  one, 
Equal  to  him  begotten  Son  ?  by  whom 
As  by  his  Word  the  mighty  Father  made 
All  things,  ev'n  thee ;  and  all  the  Spirits  of  Heav'n 


John  Milton.  209 

By  him  created  in  their  bright  degrees, 

Crown'd  them  with  glory,  and  to  their  glory  named 

Thrones,  Dominations,  Princedoms,  Virtues,  Pow'rs, 

Essential  Pow'rs ;  nor  by  his  reign  obscured, 

But  more  illustrious  made  ;  since  he  the  Head, 

One  of  our  number  thus  reduced  becomes ; 

His  laws  our  laws  ;  all  honour  to  him  done 

Returns  our  own.     Cease  then  this  impious  rage, 

And  tempt  not  these  ;  but  hasten  to  appease 

Th'  incensed  Father  and  th'  incensed  Son, 

While  pardon  may  be  found,  in  time  besought." 

Yet  though  Abdiel's  intentions  were  undeniably  good,  his 
argument  is  rather  specious.  Acting  as  an  instrument  in 
the  process  of  creation  would  scarcely  give  a  valid  claim  to 
the  obedience  of  the  created  being.  Power  may  be  shown 
in  the  act,  no  doubt ;  but  mere  power  gives  no  true  claim  to 
the  obedience  of  moral  beings.  It  is  a  kind  of  principle  ol 
all  manner  of  idolatries  and  false  religions  to  believe  that  it 
does  so.  Satan,  besides,  takes  issue  on  the  fact : 

"  That  we  were  formed  then,  say'st  thou  ?  and  the  work 
Of  secondary  hands,  by  task  transferr'd 
From  Father  to  his  Son  ?     Strange  point  and  new ! 
Doctrine  which  we  would  know  whence  learned." 

And  we  must  say  that  the  speech  in  which  the  new  ruler  is 
introduced  to  the  "  thrones,  dominations,  princedoms, 
powers,"  is  hard  to  reconcile  with  Abdiel's  exposition, 
"  This  day  "  he  seems  to  have  come  into  existence,  and 
could  hardly  have  assisted  at  the  creation  of  the  angels,  who 
are  not  young,  and  who  converse  with  one  another  like  old 
acquaintances. 

We  have  gone  into  this  part  of  the  subject  at  length, 

because  it  is  the  source  of  the  great  error  which  pervades 

"  Paradise  Lost ".    Satan  is  made  interesting.    This  has  been 

the   charge   of  a   thousand   orthodox   and   even   heterodox 

VOL.  n.  14 


2io  Literary  Studies. 


writers  against  Milton.  Shelley,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
gloried  in  it ;  and  fancied,  if  we  remember  rightly,  that 
Milton  intentionally  ranged  himself  on  the  Satanic  side  of  the 
Universe,  just  as  Shelley  himself  would  have  done,  and  that  he 
wished  to  show  the  falsity  of  the  ordinary  theology.  But  Mil- 
ton was  born  an  age  too  early  for  such  aims,  and  was  far  too 
sincere  to  have  advocated  any  doctrine  in  a  form  so  indirect. 
He  believed  every  word  he  said.  He  was  not  conscious  of  the 
effect  his  teaching  would  produce  in  an  age  like  this,  when 
scepticism  is  in  the  air,  and  when  it  is  not  possible  to  help 
looking  coolly  on  his  delineations.  Probably  in  our  boyhood 
we  can  recollect  a  period  when  any  solemn  description  of 
celestial  events  would  have  commanded  our  respect ;  we 
should  not  have  dared  to  read  it  intelligently,  to  canvass  its 
details  and  see  what  it  meant :  it  was  a  religious  book  ;  it 
sounded  reverential,  and  that  would  have  sufficed.  Some- 
thing like  this  was  the  state  of  mind  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Even  Milton  probably  shared  in  a  vague  reverence 
for  religious  language.  He  hardly  felt  the  moral  effect  of 
the  pictures  he  was  drawing.  His  artistic  instinct  too, 
often  hurries  him  away.  His  Satan  was  to  him,  as  to  us, 
the  hero  of  his  poem.  Having  commenced  by  making  him 
resist  on  an  occasion  which  in  an  earthly  kingdom  would 
have  been  excusable  and  proper,  he  probably  a  little  sympa- 
thised with  him,  just  as  his  readers  do. 

The  interest  of  Satan's  character  is  at  its  height  in  the 
first  two  books.  Coleridge  justly  compared  it  to  that  of 
Napoleon.  There  is  the  same  pride,  the  same  Satanic 
ability,  the  same  will,  the  same  egotism.  His  character 
seems  to  grow  with  his  position.  He  is  far  finer  after  his 
fall,  in  misery  and  suffering,  with  scarcely  any  resource 
except  in  himself,  than  he  was  originally  in  heaven ;  at 
least,  if  Raphael's  description  of  him  can  be  trusted.  No 
portrait  which  imagination  or  history  has  drawn  of  a  revolu- 


John  Milton.  211 

tionary  anarch  is  nearly  so  perfect ;  there  is  all  the  grandeur 
of  the  greatest  human  mind,  and  certain  infinitude  in  his 
circumstances  which  humanity  must  ever  want.  Few 
Englishmen  feel  a  profound  reverence  for  Napoleon  I. 
There  was  no  French  alliance  in  his  time ;  we  have  most 
of  us  some  tradition  of  antipathy  to  him.  Yet  hardly  any 
Englishman  can  read  the  account  of  the  campaign  of  1814 
without  feeling  his  interest  in  the  emperor  to  be  strong, 
and  without  perhaps  being  conscious  of  a  latent  wish  that 
he  may  succeed.  Our  opinion  is  against  him,  our  serious 
wish  is  of  course  for  England ;  but  the  imagination  has  a 
sympathy  of  its  own,  and  will  not  give  place.  We  read 
about  the  great  general — never  greater  than  in  that  last 
emergency — showing  resources  of  genius  that  seem  almost 
infinite,  and  that  assuredly  have  never  been  surpassed,  yet 
vanquished,  yielding  to  the  power  of  circumstances,  to  the 
combined  force  of  adversaries,  each  of  whom  singly  he  out- 
matches in  strength,  and  all  of  whom  together  he  surpasses 
in  majesty  and  in  mind.  Something  of  the  same  sort  of 
interest  belongs  to  the  Satan  of  the  first  two  books  of 
"Paradise  Lost".  We  know  that  he  will  be  vanquished;  his 
name  is  not  a  recommendation.  Still  we  do  not  imagine 
distinctly  the  minds  by  which  he  is  to  be  vanquished  ;  we 
do  not  take  the  same  interest  in  them  that  we  do  in  him ; 
our  sympathies,  our  fancy,  are  on  his  side. 

Perhaps  much  of  this  was  inevitable;  yet  what  a  defect  it 
is  !  especially  what  a  defect  in  Milton's  own  view,  and 
looked  at  with  the  stern  realism  with  which  he  regarded  it ! 
Suppose  that  the  author  of  evil  in  the  universe  were  the 
most  attractive  being  in  it ;  suppose  that  the  source  of  all 
sin  were  the  origin  of  all  interest  to  us  !  We  need  not  dwell 
upon  this. 

As  we  have  said,  much  of  this  was  difficult  to  avoid,  it 
indeed  it  could  be  avoided,  in  dealing  with  such  a  theme, 


212  Literary  Studies. 


Even  Milton  shrank,  in  some  measure,  from  delineating 
the  Divine  character.  His  imagination  evidently  halts 
when  it  is  required  to  perform  that  task.  The  more  deli- 
cate imagination  of  our  modern  world  would  shrink  still 
more.  Any  person  who  will  consider  what  such  an 
attempt  must  end  in,  will  find  his  nerves  quiver.  But 
by  a  curiously  fatal  error,  Milton  has  selected  for  delinea- 
tion exactly  that  part  of  the  Divine  nature  which  is  most 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  human  faculties,  and  which  is  also, 
when  we  try  to  describe  our  fancy  of  it,  the  least  effective  to 
our  minds.  He  has  made  God  argue.  Now  the  procedure 
of  the  Divine  mind  from  truth  to  truth  must  ever  be  incom- 
prehensible to  us  ;  the  notion,  indeed,  of  His  proceeding  at 
all,  is  a  contradiction  :  to  some  extent,  at  least,  it  is  inevit- 
able that  we  should  use  such  language,  but  we  know  it  is  in 
reality  inapplicable.  A  long  train  of  reasoning  in  such  a 
connection  is  so  out  of  place  as  to  be  painful  ;  and  yet 
Milton  has  many.  He  relates  a  series  of  family  prayers  in 
heaven,  with  sermons  afterwards,  which  are  very  tedious. 
Even  Pope  was  shocked  at  the  notion  of  Providence  talking 
like  "a  school-divine".1  And  there  is  the  still  worse  error, 
that  if  you  once  attribute  reasoning  to  Him,  subsequent 
logicians  may  discover  that  He  does  not  reason  very  well. 

Another  way  in  which  Milton  has  contrived  to  strengthen 
our  interest  in  Satan,  is  the  number  and  insipidity  of  the 
good  angels.  There  are  old  rules  as  to  the  necessity  of  a 
supernatural  machinery  for  an  epic  poem,  worth  some 
fraction  of  the  paper  on  which  they  are  written,  and  derived 
from  the  practice  of  Homer,  who  believed  his  gods  and 
goddesses  to  be  real  beings,  and  would  have  been  rather 
harsh  with  a  critic  who  called  them  machinery.  These 
rules  had  probably  an  influence  with  Milton,  and  induced 
him  to  manipulate  those  serious  angels  more  than  he  would 
1  Imitation  of  Horace's  Epistle  to  Augustus,  book  ii.,  ep.  i. 


John  Milton.  213 

have  done  otherwise.  They  appear  to  be  excellent  adminis- 
trators with  very  little  to  do ;  a  kind  of  grand  chamberlains 
with  wings,  who  fly  down  to  earth  and  communicate  infor- 
mation to  Adam  and  Eve.  They  have  no  character ;  they 
are  essentially  messengers,  merely  conductors,  so  to  say,  of 
the  providential  will :  no  one  fancies  that  they  have  an 
independent  power  of  action  ;  they  seem  scarcely  to  have 
minds  of  their  own.  No  effect  can  be  more  unfortunate.  If 
the  struggle  of  Satan  had  been  with  Deity  directly,  the 
natural  instincts  of  religion  would  have  been  awakened  ;  but 
when  an  angel  possessed  of  mind  is  contrasted  with  angels 
possessed  only  of  wings,  we  sympathise  with  the  former. 

In  the  first  two  books,  therefore,  our  sympathy  with 
Milton's  Satan  is  great ;  we  had  almost  said  unqualified. 
The  speeches  he  delivers  are  of  well-known  excellence. 
Lord  Brougham,  no  contemptible  judge  of  emphatic  oratory, 
has  laid  down,  that  if  a  person  had  not  an  opportunity  of 
access  to  the  great  Attic  masterpieces,  he  had  better  choose 
these  for  a  model.  What  is  to  be  regretted  about  the  orator 
is,  that  he  scarcely  acts  up  to  his  sentiments.  "  Better  to 
reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven,"  is,  at  any  rate,  an 
audacious  declaration.  But  he  has  no  room  for  exhibiting 
similar  audacity  in  action.  His  offensive  career  is  limited. 
In  the  nature  of  the  subject  there  was  scarcely  any  oppor- 
tunity for  the  fallen  archangel  to  display  in  the  detail  of  his 
operations  the  surpassing  intellect  with  which  Milton  has 
endowed  him.  He  goes  across  chaos,  gets  into  a  few 
physical  difficulties ;  but  these  are  not  much.  His  grand 
aim  is  the  conquest  of  our  first  parents  ;  and  we  are  at  once 
struck  with  the  enormous  inequality  of  the  conflict.  Two 
beings  just  created,  without  experience,  without  guile,  with- 
out knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  are  expected  to  contend 
with  a  being  on  the  delineation  of  whose  powers  every 
resource  of  art  and  imagination,  every  subtle  suggestion, 


*. 

214  Literary  Studies. 

every  emphatic  simile,  has  been  lavished.  The  idea  in  every 
reader's  mind  is,  and  must  be,  not  surprise  that  our  first 
parents  should  yield,  but  wonder  that  Satan  should  not 
think  it  beneath  him  to  attack  them.  It  is  as  if  an  army 
should  invest  a  cottage. 

We  have  spoken  more  of  theology  than  we  intended ;  and 
we  need  not  say  how  much  the  monstrous  inequalities  attri- 
buted to  the  combatants  aftect  our  estimate  of  the  results  of  the 
conflict.  The  state  of  man  is  what  it  is,  because  the  defence- 
less Adam  and  Eve  of  Milton's  imagination  yielded  to  the 
nearly  all-powerful  Satan  whom  he  has  delineated.  Milton 
has  in  some  sense  invented  this  difficulty ;  for  in  the  book  of 
Genesis  there  is  no  such  inequality.  The  serpent  may  be 
subtler  than  any  beast  of  the  field  ;  but  he  is  not  necessarily 
subtler  or  cleverer  than  man.  So  far  from  Milton  having 
justified  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  he  has  loaded  the  common 
theology  with  a  new  encumbrance. 

We  may  need  refreshment  after  this  discussion;  and  we 
cannot  find  it  better  than  in  reading  a  few  remarks  of  Eve. 

"  That  day  I  oft  remember,  when  from  sleep 
I  first  awaked,  and  found  myself  reposed 
Under  a  shade  of  flow'rs,  much  wond'ring  where 
And  what  I  was,  whence  hither  brought,  and  how. 
Not  distant  far  from  thence  a  murm'ring  sound 
Of  waters  issued  from  a  cave,  and  spread 
Into  a  liquid  plain,  then  stood  unmoved 
Pure  as  th'  expanse  of  Heav'n.  ...  I  thither  went 
With  unexperienced  thought,  and  laid  me  down 
On  the  green  bank,  to  look  into  the  clear 
Smooth  lake,  that  to  me  seem'd  another  sky. 
As  I  bent  down  to  look,  just  opposite 
A  shape  within  the  wat'ry  gleam  appear'd, 
Bending  to  look  on  me.     I  started  back  ; 
It  started  back  :  but  pleased  I  soon  return'd  ; 
Pleased  it  return'd  as  soon  with  answ'ring  looks 
Of  sympathy  and  love  J  there  I  had  fix'd 


John  Milton.  215 

Mine  eyes  till  now,  and  pined  with  vain  desire, 
Had  not  a  voice  thus  warn'd  me.     What  thou  seest, 
What  there  thou  seest,  fair  Creature,  is  thyself ; 
With  thee  it  came  and  goes :  but  follow  me, 
And  I  will  bring  thee  where  no  shadow  stays 
Thy  coming,  and  thy  soft  embraces,  he 
Whose  image  thou  art ;  him  thou  shalt  enjoy 
Inseparably  thine :  to  him  shalt  bear 
Multitudes  like  thyself,  and  thence  be  call'd 
Mother  of  Human  Race.     What  could  I  do 
But  follow  straight,  invisibly  thus  led  ? 
Till  I  espy'd  thee,  fair  indeed  and  tall 
Under  a  platan  ;  yet  me  thought  less  fair, 
Less  winning  soft,  less  amiably  mild, 
Than  that  smooth  wat'ry  image.     Back  I  turn'd  : 
Thou  following  cry'dst  aloud,  Return,  fair  Eve ; 
Whom  fly'st  thou  ?  " 1 

Eve's  character,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
efforts  of  the  human  imagination.  She  is  a  kind  of  abstract 
woman  ;  essentially  a  typical  being  ;  and  official  "  mother 
of  all  living".  Yet  she  is  a  real  interesting  woman,  not 
only  full  of  delicacy  and  sweetness,  but  with  all  the  unde- 
finable  fascination,  the  charm  of  personality,  which  such 
typical  characters  hardly  ever  have.  By  what  consummate 
miracle  of  wit  this  charm  of  individuality  is  preserved, 
without  impairing  the  general  idea  which  is  ever  present 
to  us,  we  cannot  explain,  for  we  do  not  know. 

Adam  is  far  less  successful.  He  has  good  hair, — 
"hyacinthine  locks"  that  "from  his  parted  forelock  manly 
hung";  a  "fair  large  front"  and  "eye  sublime";  but  he 
has  little  else  that  we  care  for.  There  is,  in  truth,  no 
opportunity  of  displaying  manly  virtues,  even  if  he  possessed 
them.  He  has  only  to  yield  to  his  wife's  solicitations, 
which  he  does.  Nor  are  we  sure  that  he  does  it  well.  He 
is  very  tedious ;  he  indulges  in  sermons  which  are  good  ; 

1  Book  iv. 


2i6  Literary  Studies. 


but  most  men  cannot  but  fear  that  so  delightful  a  being 
as  Eve  must  have  found  him  tiresome.  She  steps  away, 
however,  and  goes  to  sleep  at  some  of  the  worst  points. 

Dr.  Johnson  remarked,  that,  after  all,  "Paradise  Lost" 
was  one  of  the  books  which  no  one  wished  longer :  we  fear, 
in  this  irreverent  generation,  some  wish  it  shorter.  Hardly 
any  reader  would  be  sorry  if  some  portions  of  the  later 
books  had  been  spared  him.  Coleridge,  indeed,  discovered 
profound  mysteries  in  the  last ;  but  in  what  could  not 
Coleridge  find  a  mystery  if  he  wished  ?  Dryden  more 
wisely  remarked  that  Milton  became  tedious  when  he 
entered  upon  a  "tract  of  Scripture".1  Nor  is  it  surprising 
that  such  is  the  case.  The  style  of  many  parts  of  Scripture 
is  such  that  it  will  not  bear  addition  or  subtraction.  A  word 
less,  or  an  idea  more,  and  the  effect  upon  the  mind  is  the 
same  no  longer.  Nothing  can  be  more  tiresome  than  a 
sermonic  amplification  of  such  passages.  It  is  almost  too 
much  when,  as  from  the  pulpit,  a  paraphrastic  commentary 
is  prepared  for  our  spiritual  improvement.  In  deference  to  the 
intention  we  bear  it,  but  we  bear  it  unwillingly;  and  we  can- 
not endure  it  at  all  when,  as  in  poems,  the  object  is  to 
awaken  our  fancy  rather  than  to  improve  our  conduct.  The 
account  of  the  creation  in  the  book  of  Genesis  is  one  of  the 
compositions  from  which  no  sensitive  imagination  would 
subtract  an  iota,  to  which  it  could  not  bear  to  add  a  word. 
Milton's  paraphrase  is  alike  copious  and  ineffective.  The 
universe  is,  in  railway  phrase,  "opened,"  but  not  created; 
no  green  earth  springs  in  a  moment  from  the  indefinite  void. 
Instead,  too,  of  the  simple  loneliness  of  the  Old  Testament, 
several  angelic  officials  are  in  attendance,  who  help  in 
nothing,  but  indicate  that  heaven  must  be  plentifully  sup- 
plied with  tame  creatures. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  writing  such  criticisms,  and, 
1 "  Essay  on  Satire." 


John  Milton.  217 

indeed,  other  unfavourable  criticisms  on  "  Paradise  Lost ". 
There  is  scarcely  any  book  in  the  world  which  is  open  to  a 
greater  number,  or  which  a  reader  who  allows  plain  words  to 
produce  a  due  effect  will  be  less  satisfied  with.  Yet  what 
book  is  really  greater  ?  In  the  best  parts  the  words  have  a 
magic  in  them ;  even  in  the  inferior  passages  you  are  hardly 
sensible  of  their  inferiority  till  you  translate  them  into  your 
own  language.  Perhaps  no  style  ever  written  by  man 
expressed  so  adequately  the  conceptions  of  a  mind  so  strong 
and  so  peculiar ;  a  manly  strength,  a  haunting  atmosphere 
of  enhancing  suggestions,  a  firm  continuous  music,  are  only 
some  of  its  excellences.  To  comprehend  the  whole  of  the 
others,  you  must  take  the  volume  down  and  read  it, — the 
best  defence  of  Milton,  as  has  been  said  most  truly,  against 
all  objections. 

Probably  no  book  shows  the  transition  which  our  theology 
has  made  since  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  at 
once  so  plainly  and  so  fully.  We  do  not  now  compose  long 
narratives  to  "justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man".  The  more 
orthodox  we  are,  the  more  we  shrink  from  it ;  the  more  we 
hesitate  at  such  a  task,  the  more  we  allege  that  we  have  no 
powers  for  it.  Our  most  celebrated  defences  of  established 
tenets  are  in  the  style  of  Butler,  not  in  that  of  Milton.  They 
do  not  profess  to  show  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  human 
destiny  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  hint  that  probably  we  could 
not  understand  such  an  explanation  if  it  were  given  us ;  at 
any  rate,  they  allow  that  it  is  not  given  us.  Their  course  is 
palliative.  They  suggest  an  "analogy  of  difficulties".  If 
our  minds  were  greater,  so  they  reason,  we  should  compre- 
hend these  doctrines :  now  we  cannot  explain  analogous 
facts  which  we  see  and  know.  No  style  can  be  more  oppo- 
site to  the  bold  argument,  the  boastful  exposition  of  Milton. 
The  teaching  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  in  the  very  atmo- 
sphere we  breathe.  We  read  it  in  the  teachings  of  Oxfc-rd  ; 


218  Literary  Studies. 


we  hear  it  from  the  missionaries  of  the  Vatican.  The  air  of 
the  theology  is  clarified.  We  know  our  difficulties,  at  least; 
we  are  rather  prone  to  exaggerate  the  weight  of  some  than 
to  deny  the  reality  of  any. 

We  cannot  continue  a  line  of  thought  which  would  draw 
us  on  too  far  for  the  patience  of  our  readers.  We  must, 
however,  make  one  more  remark,  and  we  shall  have  finished 
our  criticism  on  "  Paradise  Lost ".  It  is  analogous  to  that 
which  we  have  just  made.  The  scheme  of  the  poem  is 
based  on  an  offence  against  positive  morality.  The  offence 
of  Adam  was  not  against  nature  or  conscience,  nor  against 
anything  of  which  we  can  see  the  reason,  or  conceive  the 
obligation,  but  against  an  unexplained  injunction  of  the 
Supreme  Will.  The  rebellion  in  heaven,  as  Milton  describes 
it,  was  a  rebellion,  not  against  known  ethics,  or  immutable 
spiritual  laws,  but  against  an  arbitrary  selection  and  an 
unexplained  edict.  We  do  not  say  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  positive  morality :  we  do  not  think  so ;  even  if  we 
did,  we  should  not  insert  a  proposition  so  startling  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  literary  criticism.  But  we  are  sure  that 
wherever  a  positive  moral  edict  is  promulgated,  it  is  no 
subject,  except  perhaps  under  a  very  peculiar  treatment,  for 
literary  art.  By  the  very  nature  of  it,  it  cannot  satisfy  the 
heart  and  conscience.  It  is  a  difficulty ;  we  need  not 
attempt  to  explain  it  away.  There  are  mysteries  enough 
which  will  never  be  explained  away.  But  it  is  contrary  to 
every  principle  of  criticism  to  state  the  difficulty  as  if  it  were 
not  one  ;  to  bring  forward  the  puzzle,  yet  leave  it  to  itself;  to 
publish  so  strange  a  problem,  and  give  only  an  untrue 
solution  of  it :  and  yet  such,  in  its  bare  statement,  is  all 
that  Milton  has  done. 

Of  Milton's  other  writings  we  have  left  ourselves  no 
room  to  speak  ;•  and  though  every  one  of  them,  or  almost 
every  one  of  them,  would  well  repay  a  careful  criticism,  yet 


John  Milton.  219 

few  of  them  seem  to  throw  much  additional  light  on  his 
character,  or  add  much  to  our  essential  notion  of  his  genius, 
though  they  may  exemplify  and  enhance  it.  "Comus"  is  the 
poem  which  does  so  the  most.  Literature  has  become  so 
much  lighter  than  it  used  to  be,  that  we  can  scarcely  realise 
the  position  it  occupied  in  the  light  literature  of  our  fore- 
fathers. We  have  now  in  our  own  language  many  poems 
that  are  pleasanter  in  their  subject,  more  graceful  in  their 
execution,  more  flowing  in  their  outline,  more  easy  to  read. 
Dr.  Johnson,  though  perhaps  no  very  excellent  authority  on 
the  more  intangible  graces  of  literature,  was  disposed  to 
deny  to  Milton  the  capacity  of  creating  the  lighter  literature  : 
"  Milton,  madam,  was  a  genius  that  could  cut  a  colossus 
from  a  rock,  but  could  not  carve  heads  upon  cherry-stones  ". 
And  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  this  generation,  which  has 
access  to  the  almost  indefinite  quantity  of  lighter  composi- 
tions which  have  been  produced  since  Johnson's  time,  were 
to  echo  his  sentence.  In  some  degree,  perhaps,  the  popular 
taste  does  so.  "Comus"  has  no  longer  the  peculiar  exceptional 
popularity  which  it  used  to  have.  We  can  talk  without 
general  odium  of  its  defects.  Its  characters  are  nothing,  its 
sentiments  are  tedious,  its  story  is  not  interesting.  But  it 
is  only  when  we  have  realised  the  magnitude  of  its  deficien- 
cies that  we  comprehend  the  peculiarity  of  its  greatness.  Its 
power  is  in  its  style.  A  grave  and  firm  music  pervades  it : 
it  is  soft,  without  a  thought  of  weakness ;  harmonious  and 
yet  strong ;  impressive,  as  few  such  poems  are,  yet  covered 
with  a  bloom  of  beauty  and  a  complexity  of  charm  that  few 
poems  have  either.  We  have,  perhaps,  light  literature  in 
itself  better,  that  we  read  oftener  and  more  easily,  that  lingers 
more  in  our  memories  ;  but  we  have  not  any,  we  question  if 
there  ever  will  be  any,  which  gives  so  true  a  conception  of 
the  capacity  and  the  dignity  of  the  mind  by  which  it  was 
produced.  The  breath  of  solemnity  which  hovers  round  the 


22o  Literary  Studies. 


music  attaches  us  to  the  writer.     Every  line,  here  as  else- 
where, in  Milton  excites  the  idea  of  indefinite  power. 

And  so  we  must  draw  to  a  close.  The  subject  is  an  in- 
finite one,  and  if  we  pursued  it,  we  should  lose  ourselves  in 
miscellaneous  commentary,  and  run  on  far  beyond  the 
patience  of  our  readers.  What  we  have  said  has  at  least  a 
defined  intention.  We  have  wished  to  state  the  impression 
which  the  character  of  Milton  and  the  greatest  of  Milton's 
works  are  likely  to  produce  on  readers  of  the  present  genera- 
tion— a  generation  different  from  his  own  almost  more  than 
any  other. 


221 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.1 

(1862.) 

NOTHING  is  so  transitory  as  second-class  fame.  The  name 
of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  is  hardly  now  known  to 
the  great  mass  of  ordinary  English  readers.  A  generation 
has  arisen  which  has  had  time  to  forget  her.  Yet  only  a 
few  years  since,  an  allusion  to  the  "Lady  Mary"  would 
have  been  easily  understood  by  every  well-informed  person ; 
young  ladies  were  enjoined  to  form  their  style  upon  hers  j 
and  no  one  could  have  anticipated  that  her  letters  would 
seem  in  1862  as  different  from  what  a  lady  of  rank  would 
then  write  or  publish  as  if  they  had  been  written  in  the 
times  of  paganism.  The  very  change,  however,  of  popular 
taste  and  popular  morality  gives  these  letters  now  a  kind  of 
interest.  The  farther  and  the  more  rapidly  we  have  drifted 
from  where  we  once  lay,  the  more  do  we  wish  to  learn  what 
kind  of  port  it  was.  We  venture,  therefore,  to  recommend 
the  letters  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  as  an  instructive 
and  profitable  study,  not  indeed  to  the  youngest  of  young 
ladies,  but  to  those  maturer  persons  of  either  sex  "  who  have 
taken  all  knowledge  to  be  their  province,"  and  who  have 
commenced  their  readings  in  "  universality"  by  an  assiduous 
perusal  of  Parisian  fiction. 

1  The  Letters  and  Works  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  Edited 
by  her  Great-grandson,  Lord  Wharncliffe.  Third  edition,  with  Additions 
and  Corrections  derived  from  the  original  Manuscripts,  illustrative  Notes, 
and  a  New  Memoir.  By  W.  Moy  Thomas.  In  two  volumes.  London  : 
Henry  Bohn. 


222  Literary  Studies. 


It  is,  we  admit,  true  that  these  letters  are  not  at  the  pre- 
sent day  very  agreeable  reading.  What  our  grandfathers 
and  grandmothers  thought  of  them  it  is  not  so  easy  to  say. 
But  it  now  seems  clear  that  Lady  Mary  was  that  most 
miserable  of  human  beings,  an  ambitious  and  wasted 
woman ;  that  she  brought  a  very  cultivated  intellect  into  a 
very  cultivated  society ;  that  she  gave  to  that  society  what 
it  was  most  anxious  to  receive,  and  received  from  it  all 
which  it  had  to  bestow ; — and  yet  that  this  all  was  to  her 
as  nothing.  The  high  intellectual  world  of  England  has 
never  been  so  compact,  so  visible  in  a  certain  sense,  so 
enjoyable,  as  it  was  in  her  time.  She  had  a  mind  to  under- 
stand it,  beauty  to  adorn  it,  and  wit  to  amuse  it;  but  she 
chose  to  pass  a  great  part  of  her  life  in  exile,  and  returned 
at  last  to  die  at  home  among  a  new  generation,  whose  name 
she  hardly  knew,  and  to  whom  she  herself  was  but  a 
spectacle  and  a  wonder. 

Lady  Mary  Pierrepont — for  that  was  by  birth  her  name — 
belonged  to  a  family  which  had  a  traditional  reputation  for 
ability  and  cultivation.  The  Memoirs  of  Lucy  Hutchinson — 
(almost  the  only  legacy  that  remains  to  us  from  the  first 
generation  of  refined  Puritans,  the  only  book,  at  any  rate, 
which  effectually  brings  home  to  us  how  different  they  were 
in  taste  and  in  temper  from  their  more  vulgar  and  feeble 
successors) — contains  a  curious  panegyric  on  wise  William 
Pierrepont,  to  whom  the  Parliamentary  party  resorted  as  an 
oracle  of  judgment,  and  whom  Cromwell  himself,  if  tradition 
may  be  trusted,  at  times  condescended  to  consult  and  court. 
He  did  not,  however,  transmit  much  of  his  discretion  to  his 
grandson,  Lady  Mary's  father.  This  nobleman,  for  he  in- 
nerited  from  an  elder  branch  of  the  family  both  the  marquis- 
ate  of  Dorchester  and  the  dukedom  of  Kingston,  was  a  mere 
man  "about  town,"  as  the  homely  phrase  then  went,  who 
passed  a  long  life  of  fashionable  idleness  interspersed  with 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  223 

political  intrigue,  and  who  signalised  his  old  age  by  marry- 
ing a  young  beauty  of  fewer  years  than  his  youngest 
daughter,  who,  as  he  very  likely  knew,  cared  nothing  for 
him  and  much  for  another  person.  He  had  the  "  grand 
air,"  however,  and  he  expected  his  children,  when  he  visited 
them,  to  kneel  down  immediately  and  ask  his  blessing, 
which,  if  his  character  was  what  is  said,  must  have  been 
very  valuable.  The  only  attention  he  ever  (that  we  know 
of)  bestowed  on  Lady  Mary  was  a  sort  of  theatrical  out- 
rage, pleasant  enough  to  her  at  the  time,  but  scarcely  in 
accordance  with  the  educational  theories  in  which  we  now 
believe.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Kit-Cat,  a  great  Whig 
club,  the  Brooks's  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  which,  like 
Brooks's,  appears  not  to  have  been  purely  political,  but  to 
have  found  time  for  occasional  relaxation  and  for  somewhat 
unbusiness-like  discussions.  They  held  annually  a  formal 
meeting  to  arrange  the  female  toasts  for  that  year ;  and  we 
are  told  that  "a  whim  seized"  her  father  "to  nominate" 
Lady  Mary,  "  then  not  eight  years  old,  a  candidate ;  alleg- 
ing that  she  was  far  prettier  than  any  lady  on  their  list. 
The  other  members  demurred,  because  the  rules  of  the  club 
forbade  them  to  elect  a  beauty  whom  they  had  never  seen. 
'  Then  you  shall  see  her,'  cried  he ;  and  in  the  gaiety  of 
the  moment  sent  orders  home  to  have  her  finely  dressed  and 
brought  to  him  at  the  tavern,  where  she  was  received  with 
acclamations,  her  claim  unanimously  allowed,  her  health 
drunk  by  every  one  present,  and  her  name  engraved  in  due 
form  upon  a  drinking-glass.  The  company  consisting  of 
some  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  England,  she  went  from 
the  lap  of  one  poet,  or  patriot,  or  statesman,  to  the  arms  of 
another,  was  feasted  with  sweetmeats,  overwhelmed  with 
caresses,  and  what  perhaps  already  pleased  her  better  than 
either,  heard  her  wit  and  beauty  loudly  extolled  on  every 
side.  Pleasure,  she  said,  was  too  poor  a  word  to  express 


224  Literary  Studies. 


her  sensations ;  they  amounted  to  ecstasy :  never  again, 
throughout  her  whole  future  life,  did  she  pass  so  happy  a 
day.  Nor,  indeed,  could  she ;  for  the  love  of  admiration, 
which  this  scene  was  calculated  to  excite  or  increase,  could 
never  again  be  so  fully  gratified ;  there  is  always  some 
alloying  ingredient  in  the  cup,  some  drawback  upon  the 
triumphs,  of  grown  people.  Her  father  carried  on  the  frolic, 
and  we  may  conclude,  confirmed  the  taste,  by  having  her 
picture  painted  for  the  club-room,  that  she  might  be  enrolled 
a  regular  toast."  Perhaps  some  young  ladies  of  more  than 
eight  years  old  would  not  much  object  to  have  lived  in  those 
times.  Fathers  may  be  wiser  now  than  they  were  then, 
but  they  rarely  make  themselves  so  thoroughly  agreeable  to 
their  children. 

This  stimulating  education  would  leave  a  weak  and  vain 
girl  still  more  vain  and  weak  ;  but  it  had  not  that  effect  on 
Lady  Mary.  Vain  she  probably  was,  and  her  father's  boast- 
fulness  perhaps  made  her  vainer;  but  her  vanity  took  an 
intellectual  turn.  She  read  vaguely  and  widely ;  she 
managed  to  acquire  some  knowledge — how  much  is  not 
clear — of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  certainly  learned  with  suffi- 
cient thoroughness  French  and  Italian.  She  used  to  say 
that  she  had  the  worst  education  in  the  world,  and  that  it 
was  only  by  the  "  help  of  an  uncommon  memory  and  inde- 
fatigable labour"  that  she  had  acquired  her  remarkable 
attainments.  Her  father  certainly  seems  to  have  been 
capable  of  any  degree  of  inattention  and  neglect ;  but  we 
should  not  perhaps  credit  too  entirely  all  the  legends  which 
an  old  lady  recounted  to  her  grandchildren  of  the  intellectual 
difficulties  of  her  youth. 

She  seems  to  have  been  encouraged  by  her  grandmother, 
one  of  the  celebrated  Evelyn  family,  whose  memory  is  thus 
enigmatically  but  still  expressively  enshrined  in  the  diary  of 
the  author  of  Sylva: — "  Under  this  date,"  we  are  informed, 


Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  225 

"of  the  2nd  of  July,  1649,  he  records  a  day  spent  at  God- 
stone,  where  Sir  John  "  (this  lady's  father)  "was  on  a  visit 
with  his  daughter"  ;  and  he  adds:  "Mem.  The  prodigious 
memory  of  Sir  John  of  Wilts's  daughter,  since  married  to 
Mr.  W.  Pierrepont."  The  lady  who  was  thus  formidable 
in  her  youth  deigned  in  her  old  age  to  write  frequently,  as 
we  should  now  say, — to  open  a  "  regular  commerce "  of 
letters,  as  was  said  in  that  age — with  Lady  Mary  when 
quite  a  girl,  which  she  always  believed  to  have  been  bene- 
ficial to  her,  and  probably  believed  rightly;  for  she  was  in- 
telligent enough  to  comprehend  what  was  said  to  her,  and  the 
old  lady  had  watched  many  changes  in  many  things. 

Her  greatest  intellectual  guide,  at  least  so  in  after 
life  she  used  to  relate,  was  Mr.  Wortley,  whom  she  after- 
wards married.  "  When  I  was  young,"  she  said,  "  I  was 
a  great  admirer  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  and  that  was 
one  of  the  chief  reasons  that  set  me  upon  the  thoughts  of 
stealing  the  Latin  language.  Mr.  Wortley  was  the  only 
person  to  whom  I  communicated  my  design,  and  he  en- 
couraged me  in  it.  I  used  to  study  five  or  six  hours  a 
day  for  two  years  in  my  father's  library ;  and  so  got  that 
language,  whilst  everybody  else  thought  I  was  reading 
nothing  but  novels  and  romances."  She  perused,  however, 
some  fiction  also ;  for  she  possessed,  till  her  death, 
the  whole  library  of  Mrs.  Lennox's  Female  Quixote,  a 
ponderous  series  of  novels  in  folio,  in  one  of  which  she 
had  written,  in  her  fairest  youthful  hand,  the  names  and 
characteristic  qualities  of  "  the  beautiful  Diana,  the  volatile 
Clemene,  the  melancholy  Doris,  Celadon  the  faithful, 
Adamas  the  wise,  and  so  on,  forming  two  columns". 

Of  Mr.  Wortley's  character  it  is  not  difficult,  from  the 

materials  before  us,  to  decipher  the  features ;  he  was  a  slow 

man,  with  a  taste  for  quick  companions.     Swift's  diary  to 

Stella  mentions  an  evening  spent  over  a  bottle  of  o4d  wine 

VOL.  ii.  15 


226  Literary  Studies. 


with  Mr.  Wortley  and  Mr.  Addison.  Mr.  Wortley  was 
a  rigid  Whig,  and  Swift's  transition  to  Toryism  soon  broke 
short  that  friendship.  But  with  Addison  he  maintained 
an  intimacy  which  lasted  during  their  joint  lives,  and 
survived  the  marriages  of  both.  With  Steele  likewise  he 
was  upon  the  closest  terms,  is  said  to  have  written  some 
papers  in  the  Taller  and  Spectator ;  and  the  second 
volume  of  the  former  is  certainly  dedicated  to  him  in 
affectionate  and  respectful  terms. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  these  conspicuous  testi- 
monials to  high  ability,  Mr.  Wortley  was  an  orderly  and 
dull  person.  Every  letter  received  by  him  from  his  wife 
during  five  and  twenty  years  of  absence,  was  found,  at  his 
death,  carefully  endorsed  with  the  date  of  its  arrival,  and 
with  a  synopsis  of  its  contents.  "  He  represented,"  we  are 
told,  "  at  various  times,  Huntingdon,  Westminster,  and 
Peterborough  in  Parliament,  and  appears  to  have  been  a 
member  of  that  class  who  win  respectful  attention  by  sober 
and  business-like  qualities ;  and  his  name  is  constantly 
found  in  the  drier  and  more  formal  part  of  the  politics  of 
the  time."  He  answered  to  the  description  given  more 
recently  of  a  similar  person  :  "  Is  not,"  it  was  asked,  "  Sir 

John a  very  methodical  person  ?  "  "  Certainly  he  is," 

was  the  reply,  "he  files  his  invitations  to  dinner."  The 
Wortley  papers,  according  to  the  description  of  those  who 
have  inspected  them,  seem  to  contain  the  accumulations  of 
similar  documents  during  many  years.  He  hoarded  money, 
however,  to  more  purpose,  for  he  died  one  of  the  richest 
commoners  in  England  ;  and  a  considerable  part  of  the  now 
marvellous  wealth  of  the  Bute  family  seems  at  first  to  have 
been  derived  from  him. 

Whatever  good  qualities  Addison  and  Steele  discovered 
in  Mr.  Wortley,  they  were  certainly  not  those  of  a  good 
writer.  We  have  from  his  pen  and  from  that  of  Lady  Mary 


Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  227 

a  description  of  the  state  of  English  politics  during  the 
three  first  years  of  George  III.,  and  any  one  who  wishes  to 
understand  how  much  readability  depends  upon  good  writing 
would  do  well  to  compare  the  two.  Lady  Mary's  is  a  clear 
and  bright  description  of  all  the  superficial  circumstances 
of  the  time ;  Mr.  Wortley's  is  equally  superficial,  often 
unintelligible  and  always  lumbering,  and  scarcely  succeeds 
in  telling  us  more  than  that  the  writer  was  wholly  un- 
successful in  all  which  he  tried  to  do.  As  to  Mr.  Wortley's 
contributions  to  the  periodicals  of  his  time,  we  may  suspect 
that  the  jottings  preserved  at  London  are  all  which  he 
ever  wrote  of  them,  and  that  the  style  and  arrangement 
were  supplied  by  more  skilful  writers.  Even  a  county 
member  might  furnish  headings  for  the  Saturday  Review. 
He  might  say :  "  Trent  British  vessel — Americans  always 
intrusive — Support  Government — Kill  all  that  is  necessary  ". 

What  Lady  Mary  discovered  in  Mr.  Wortley  it  is  easier 
to  say  and  shorter,  for  he  was  very  handsome.  If  his 
portrait  can  be  trusted,  there  was  a  placid  and  business 
like  repose  about  him,  which  might  easily  be  attractive  to 
a  rather  excitable  and  wild  young  lady,  especially  when 
combined  wuh  imposing  features  and  a  quiet  sweet  ex- 
pression. He  attended  to  her  also.  When  she  was  a  girl 
of  fourteen,  he  met  her  at  a  party,  and  evinced  his  admira- 
tion. And  a  little  while  later,  it  is  not  difficult  to  fancy 
that  a  literary  young  lady  might  be  much  pleased  with  a 
good-looking  gentleman  not  uncomfortably  older  than  her- 
self, yet  having  a  place  in  the  world,  and  well  known  to 
the  literary  men  of  the  age.  He  was  acquainted  with  the 
classics  too,  or  was  supposed  to  be  so ;  and  whether  it  was 
a  consequence  of  or  a  preliminary  to  their  affections,  Lady 
Mary  wished  to  know  the  classics  also. 

Bishop  Burnet  was  so  kind  as  to  superintend  the  singu- 
lar   studies — for    such    they   were    clearly   thought — of  this 


228  Literary  Studies. 


aristocratic  young  lady  ;  and  the  translation  of  the  Enchiri- 
dion of  Epictetus,  which  he  revised,  is  printed  in  this  edition 
of  her  works.  But  even  so  grave  an  undertaking  could  not 
wholly  withdraw  her  from  more  congenial  pursuits.  She 
commenced  a  correspondence  with  Miss  Wortley,  Mr. 
Wortley's  unmarried  sister,  which  still  remains,  though 
Miss  Wortley's  letters  are  hardly  to  be  called  hers,  for  her 
brother  composed,  and  she  merely  copied  them.  The  cor- 
respondence is  scarcely  in  the  sort  of  English  or  in  the  tone 
which  young  ladies,  we  understand,  now  use. 

"It  is  as  impossible,"  says  Miss  Wortley,  "for  my  dearest  Lady 
Mary  to  utter  thought  that  can  seem  dull  as  to  put  on  a  look  that  is  not 
beautiful.  Want  of  wit  is  a  fault  that  those  who  envy  you  most  would 
not  be  able  to  find  in  your  kind  compliments.  To  me  they  seem 
perfect,  since  repeated  assurances  of  your  kindness  forbid  me  to  question 
their  sincerity.  You  have  often  found  that  the  most  angry,  nay,  the 
most  neglectful  air  you  can  assume,  has  made  as  deep  a  wound  as  the 
kindest ;  and  these  lines  of  yours,  that  you  tax  with  dulness  (perhaps 
because  they  were  writ  when  you  was  not  in  a  right  humour,  or  when 
your  thoughts  were  elsewhere  employed),  are  so  far  from  deserving  the 
imputation,  that  the  very  turn  of  your  expression,  had  I  forgot  the  rest  o< 
your  charms,  would  be  sufficient  to  make  me  lament  the  only  fault  you 
have — your  inconstancy." 

To  which  the  reply  is  : — 

"  I  am  infinitely  obliged  to  you,  my  dear  Mrs.  Wortley,  for  the  wit, 
beauty,  and  other  fine  qualities  you  so  generously  bestow  upon  me. 
Next  to  receiving  them  from  heaven,  you  are  the  person  from  whom  I 
would  choose  to  receive  gifts  and  graces  :  I  am  very  well  satisfied  to  owe 
them  to  your  own  delicacy  of  imagination,  which  represents  to  you  the 
idea  of  a  fine  lady,  and  you  have  good  nature  enough  to  fancy  I  am  she. 
All  this  is  mighty  well,  but  you  do  not  stop  there  ;  imagination  is  bound- 
less. After  giving  me  imaginary  wit  and  beauty,  you  give  me  imaginary 
passions,  and  you  tell  me  I'm  in  love  :  if  I  am  it  is  a  perfect  sin  of 
ignorance,  for  I  don't  so  much  as  know  the  man's  name  :  I  have  been 
studying  these  three  hours,  and  cannot  guess  who  you  mean.  I  passed 
the  days  of  Nottingham  races  [at]  Thoresby  without  seeing,  or  even  wish 
ing  to  see,  one  of  the  sex.  Now,  if  I  am  in  love,  I  have  very  hard  fortune 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu. 


to  conceal  it  so  industriously  from  my  own  knowledge,  and  yet  discover 
it  so  much  to  other  people.  'Tis  against  all  form  to  have  such  a  passion 
as  that,  without  giving  one  sigh  for  the  matter.  Pray  tell  me  the  name 
of  him  I  love,  that  I  may  (according  to  the  laudable  custom  of  lovers) 
sigh  to  the  woods  and  groves  hereabouts,  and  teach  it  to  the  echo." 

After  some  time  Miss  Wortley  unfortunately  died,  and 
there  was  an  obvious  difficulty  in  continuing  the  correspond- 
ence without  the  aid  of  an  appropriate  sisterly  screen.  Mr. 
Wortley  seems  to  have  been  tranquil  and  condescending; 
perhaps  he  thought  placid  tactics  would  be  most  effective, 
for  Lady  Mary  was  not  so  calm.  He  sent  her  some  Tatlers, 
and  received,  by  way  of  thanks,  the  following  tolerably 
encouraging  letter  :  — 

"  To  Mr.  Wortley  Montagu. 

"  I  am  surprised  at  one  of  the  Tatlers  you  send  me  ;  is  it  possible  to 
have  any  sort  of  esteem  for  a  person  one  believes  capable  of  having  such 
trifling  inclinations?  Mr.  Bickerstaff  has  very  wrong  notions  of  our  sex. 
I  can  say  there  are  some  of  us  that  despise  charms  of  show,  and  all  the 
pageantry  of  greatness,  perhaps  with  more  ease  than  any  of  the  philo- 
sophers. In  contemning  the  world,  they  seem  to  take  pains  to  contemn 
it  ;  we  despise  it,  without  taking  the  pains  to  read  lessons  of  morality  to 
make  us  do  it.  At  least  I  know  I  have  always  looked  upon  it  with  con- 
tempt, without  being  at  the  expense  of  one  serious  reflection  to  oblige  me 
to  it.  I  carry  the  matter  yet  farther  ;  was  I  to  choose  of  two  thousand 
pounds  a  year  or  twenty  thousand,  the  first  would  be  my  choice.  There 
is  something  of  an  unavoidable  embarras  in  making  what  is  called  a 
great  figure  in  the  world  ;  [it]  takes  off  from  the  happiness  of  life  ;  I  hate 
the  noise  and  hurry  inseparable  from  great  estates  and  titles,  and  look 
upon  both  as  blessings  that  ought  only  to  be  given  to  fools,  for  'tis  only 
to  them  that  they  are  blessings.  The  pretty  fellows  you  speak  of,  I  own, 
entertain  me  sometimes  ;  but  is  it  impossible  to  be  diverted  with  what 
one  despises?  I  can  laugh  at  a  puppet-show;  at  the  same  time  I  know 
there  is  nothing  in  it  worth  my  attention  or  regard.  General  notions 
are  generally  wrong.  Ignorance  and  folly  are  thought  the  best  founda- 
tions for  virtue,  as  if  not  knowing  what  a  good  wife  is  was  necessary  to 
make  one  so.  I  confess  that  can  never  be  my  way  of  reasoning  ;  as  I 
always  forgive  an  injury  when  I  think  it  not  done  out  of  malice,  I  can 


236  Literary  Studies. 


never  think  myself  obliged  by  what  is  done  without  design.  Give  me 
leave  to  say  it  •[  know  it  sounds  vain),  I  know  how  to  make  a  man  oi 
sense  happy ;  but  then  that  man  must  resolve  to  contribute  something 
towards  it  himself.  I  have  so  much  esteem  for  you,  I  should  be  very 
sorry  to  hear  you  was  unhappy ;  but  for  the  world  I  would  not  be  the 
instrument  of  making  you  so ;  which  (of  the  humour  you  are)  is  hardly 
to  be  avoided  if  I  am  your  wife.  You  distrust  me — I  can  neither  be  easy, 
nor  loved,  where  I  am  distrusted.  Nor  do  I  believe  your  passion  for  me 
is  what  you  pretend  it ;  at  least  I  am  sure  was  I  in  love  I  could  not  talk 
as  you  do.  Few  women  would  have  spoke  so  plainly  as  I  have  done  ; 
but  to  dissemble  is  among  the  things  I  never  do.  I  take  more  pains  to 
approve  my  conduct  to  myself  than  to  the  world ;  and  would  not  have  tc 
accuse  myself  of  a  minute's  deceit.  I  wish  I  loved  you  enough  to  devote 
myself  to  be  for  ever  miserable,  for  the  pleasure  of  a  day  or  two's  happi- 
ness. I  cannot  resolve  upon  it.  You  must  think  otherwise  of  me, 
or  not  at  all. 

"  I  don't  enjoin  you  to  burn  this  letter.  I  know  you  will.  'Tis  the 
first  I  ever  writ  to  one  of  your  sex,  and  shall  be  the  last.  You  must 
never  expect  another.  I  resolve  against  all  correspondence  of  the  kind  ; 
my  resolutions  are  seldom  made,  and  never  broken." 

Mr.  Wortley,  however,  still  grumbled.  He  seems  to 
have  expected  a  young  lady  to  do  something  even  more 
decisive  than  ask  him  to  marry  her.  He  continued  to 
hesitate  and  pause.  The  lady  in  the  comedy  says,  "  What 
right  has  a  man  to  intend  unless  he  states  his  intentions  ?  " 
and  Lady  Mary's  biographers  are  entirely  of  that  opinion. 
They  think  her  exceedingly  ill-used,  and  Mr.  Wortley  ex- 
ceedingly to  blame.  And  so  it  may  have  been ;  certainly 
a  love-correspondence  is  rarely  found  where  activity  and 
intrepidity  on  the  lady's  side  so  much  contrasts  with 
quiescence  and  timidity  on  the  gentleman's.  If,  however, 
we  could  summon  him  before  us,  probably  Mr.  Wortley 
would  have  something  to  ans\ver  on  his  own  behalf.  It  is 
tolerably  plain  that  he  thought  Lady  Mary  too  excitable. 
"  Certainly,"  he  doubtless  reasoned,  "  she  is  a  handsome 
young  lady,  and  very  witty  ;  but  beauty  and  wit  are  danger- 
ous as  well  as  attractive.  Vivacity  is  delightful  ;  but  my 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  231 

esteemed  friend  Mr.  Addison  has  observed  that  excessive 
quickness  of  parts  is  not  unfrequently  the  cause  of  extreme 
rapidity  in  action.  Lady  Mary  makes  love  to  me  before 
marriage,  and  I  like  it ;  but  may  she  not  make  love  also  to 
some  one  else  after  marriage  ?  and  then  I  shall  not  like  it." 
Accordingly  he  writes  to  her  timorously  as  to  her  love  of 
pleasure,  her  love  of  romantic  reading,  her  occasional  tolera- 
tion of  younger  gentlemen  and  quicker  admirers.  At  last, 
however,  he  proposed ;  and,  as  far  as  the  lady  was  con- 
cerned, there  was  no  objection. 

We  might  have  expected,  from  a  superficial  view  of  the 
facts,  that  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty  either  on  the 
side  of  her  father.  Mr.  Wortley  died  one  of  the  richest  com- 
moners in  England ;  was  of  the  first  standing  in  society,  of 
good  family,  and  he  had  apparently,  therefore,  money  to 
settle  and  station  to  offer  to  his  bride.  And  he  did  offer  both. 
He  was  ready  to  settle  an  ample  sum  on  Lady  Mary,  both 
as  his  wife  and  as  his  widow,  and  was  anxious  that,  if  they 
married,  they  should  live  in  a  manner  suitable  to  her  rank 
and  his  prospects.  But  nevertheless  there  was  a  difficulty. 
The  Tatler  had  recently  favoured  its  readers  with  disserta- 
tions upon  social  ethics  not  altogether  dissimilar  to  those 
with  which  the  Saturday  Review  frequently  instructs  its 
readers.  One  of  those  dissertations1  contained  an  elaborate 
exposure  of  the  folly  of  settling  your  estate  upon  your  unborn 
children.  The  arguments  were  of  a  sort  very  easily  im- 
aginable. "Why,"  it  was  said,  "should  you  give  away 
that  which  you  have  to  a  person  whom  you  do  not  know ; 
whom  you  may  never  see ;  whom  you  may  not  like  when 
you  do  see ;  who  may  be  undutiful,  unpleasant,  or  idiotic  ? 
Why,  too,  should  each  generation  surrender  its  due  control 
over  the  next  ?  When  the  family  estate  is  settled,  men  of 
the  world  know  that  the  father's  control  is  gone,  for  dis- 

1No.  223,  i2th  September,  1710. 


232  Literary  Studies. 


interested  filial  affection  is  an  unfrequent  though  doubtless 
possible  virtue ;  but  so  long  as  property  is  in  suspense,  all 
expectants  will  be  attentive  to  those  who  have  it  in  their 
power  to  give  or  not  to  give  it."  These  arguments  had 
converted  Mr.  Wortley,  who  is  said  even  to  have  contributed 
notes  for  the  article,  and  they  seem  to  have  converted  Lady 
Mary  also.  She  was  to  have  her  money,  and  the  most  plain- 
spoken  young  ladies  do  not  commonly  care  to  argue  much 
about  the  future  provision  for  their  possible  children  ;  the 
subject  is  always  delicate  and  a  little  frightful,  and  on  the 
whole,  must  be  left  to  themselves.  But  Lord  Dorchester, 
her  father,  felt  it  his  duty  to  be  firm.  It  is  an  old  saying, 
that  "  you  never  know  where  a  man's  conscience  may  turn 
up,"  and  the  advent  of  ethical  feeling  was  in  this  case  even 
unusually  beyond  calculation.  Lord  Dorchester  had  never 
been  an  anxious  father,  and  was  not  now  going  to  be  a 
liberal  father.  He  had  never  cared  much  about  Lady  Mary, 
except  in  so  far  as  he  could  himself  gain  eclat  by  exhibiting 
her  youthful  beauty,  and  he  was  not  now  at  her  marriage 
about  to  do  at  all  more  than  was  necessary  and  decent  in  his 
station.  It  was  not  therefore  apparently  probable  that  he 
would  be  irritatingly  obstinate  respecting  the  income  of  his 
daughter's  children.  He  was  so,  however.  He  deemed  it 
a  duty  to  see  that  "his  grandchild  never  should  be  a  beggar," 
and,  for  what  reason  does  not  so  clearly  appear,  wished  that 
his  eldest  male  grandchild  should  be  immensely  richer  than 
all  his  other  grandchildren.  The  old  feudal  aristocrat,  often 
in  modern  Europe  so  curiously  disguised  in  the  indifferent 
exterior  of  a  careless  man  of  the  world,  was,  as  became  him, 
dictatorial  and  unalterable  upon  the  duty  of  founding  a 
family.  Though  he  did  not  care  much  for  his  daughter,  he 
cared  much  for  the  position  of  his  daughter's  eldest  son. 
He  had  probably  stumbled  on  the  fundamental  truth  that 
"girls  were  girls,  and  boys  were  boys,"  and  was  disinclined 


Lady  Mary   Worthy  Montagu.  2 33 

to  disregard  the  rule  of  primogeniture  by  which  he  had 
obtained  his  marquisate,  and  from  which  he  expected  a 
dukedom. 

Mr.  Wortley,  however,  was  through  life  a  man,  if  eminent 
in  nothing  else,  eminent  at  least  in  obstinacy.  He  would 
not  give  up  the  doctrine  of  the  Tatler  even  to  obtain  Lady 
Mary.  The  match  was  accordingly  abandoned,  and  Lord 
Dorchester  looked  out  for  and  found  another  gentleman 
whom  he  proposed  to  make  his  son-in-law ;  for  he  believed, 
according  to  the  old  morality,  "that  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
parents  to  find  a  husband  for  a  daughter,  and  that  when  he 
was  found,  it  was  the  daughter's  duty  to  marry  him  ".  It 
was  as  wrong  in  her  to  attempt  to  choose  as  in  him  to  neglect 
to  seek.  Lady  Mary  was,  however,  by  no  means  disposed 
to  accept  this  passive  theory  of  female  obligation.  She  l.ad 
sought  and  chosen ;  and  to  her  choice  she  intended  to 
adhere.  The  conduct  of  Mr.  Wortley  would  have  offended 
some  ladies,  but  it  rather  augmented  her  admiration.  She 
had  exactly  that  sort  of  irritable  intellect  which  sets  an  un- 
due value  on  new  theories  of  society  and  morality,  and  is 
pleased  when  others  do  so  too.  She  thought  Mr.  Wortley 
was  quite  right  not  to  "defraud  himself  for  a  possible  infant," 
and  admired  his  constancy  and  firmness.  She  determined 
to  risk  a  step,  as  she  herself  said,  unjustifiable  to  her  own 
relatives,  but  which  she  nevertheless  believed  that  she 
could  justify  to  herself.  She  decided  on  eloping  with  Mr. 
Wortley. 

Before,  however,  taking  this  audacious  leap,  she  looked 
a  little.  Though  she  did  not  object  to  the  sacrifice  of  the 
customary  inheritance  of  her  contingent  son,  she  by  no 
means  approved  of  sacrificing  the  settlement  which  Mr. 
Wortley  had  undertaken  at  a  prior  period  of  the  negotiation 
to  make  upon  herself.  And,  according  to  common  sense, 
she  was  undoubtedly  judicious.  She  was  going  from  her 


234  Literary  Studies. 


father,  and  foregoing  the  money  which  he  had  promised 
her ;  and  therefore  it  was  not  reasonable  that,  by  going  to 
her  lover,  she  should  forfeit  also  the  money  which  he  had 
promised  her.  And  there  is  nothing  offensive  in  her  mode 
of  expression.  "  'Tis  something  odd  for  a  woman  that 
brings  nothing  to  expect  anything ;  but  after  the  way  of  my 
education,  I  dare  not  pretend  to  live  but  in  some  degree 
suitable  to  it.  I  had  rather  die  than  return  to  a  dependency 
upon  relations  I  have  disobliged.  Save  me  from  that  fear, 
if  you  love  me.  If  you  cannot,  or  think  I  ought  not  to 
expect  it,  be  sincere  and  tell  me  so.  'Tis  better  I  should 
not  be  yours  at  all,  than,  for  a  short  happiness,  involve 
myself  in  ages  of  misery.  I  hope  there  will  never  be 
occasion  for  this  precaution ;  but,  however,  'tis  necessary  to 
make  it."  But  true  and  rational  as  all  this  seems,  perhaps 
it  is  still  truer  and  still  more  rational  to  say,  that  if  a  woman 
has  not  sufficient  confidence  in  her  lover  to  elope  with  him 
without  a  previous  promise  of  a  good  settlement,  she  had 
better  not  elope  with  him  at  all.  After  all,  if  he  declines  to 
make  the  stipulated  settlement,  the  lady  will  have  either  to 
return  to  her  friends  or  to  marry  without  it,  and  she  would 
have  the  full  choice  between  these  satisfactory  alternatives, 
even  if  she  asked  no  previous  promise  from  her  lover.  At 
any  rate,  the  intrusion  of  coarse  money  among  the  refined 
materials  of  romance  is,  in  this  case,  even  more  curious  and 
remarkable  than  usual. 

After  some  unsuccessful  attempts,  Lady  Mary  and  Mr. 
Wortley  did  elope  and  did  marry,  and,  after  a  certain  in- 
terval, of  course,  Lord  Dorchester  received  them,  notwith- 
standing their  contempt  of  his  authority,  into  some  sort  of 
favour  and  countenance.  They  had  probably  saved  him 
money  by  their  irregularity,  and  economical  frailties  are 
rarely  judged  severely  by  men  of  fashion  who  are  benefited 
by  them.  Lady  Mary,  however,  was  long  a  little  mis- 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  235 


trusted  by  her  own  relations,  and  never  seems  to  have 
acquired  much  family  influence ;  but  her  marriage  was  not 
her  only  peculiarity,  or  the  only  one  which  impartial  relations 
might  dislike. 

The  pair  appear  to  have  been  for  a  little  while  tolerably 
happy.  Lady  Mary  was  excitable,  and  wanted  letters  when 
absent,  and  attention  when  present :  Mr.  Wortley  was 
heavy  and  slow ;  could  not  write  letters  when  away,  and 
seemed  torpid  in  her  society  when  at  home.  Still,  these 
are  common  troubles.  Common,  too,  is  the  matrimonial 
correspondence  upon  baby's  deficiency  in  health,  and  on 
Mrs.  Behn's  opinion  that  "  the  cold  bath  is  the  best  medi- 
cine for  weak  children  ".  It  seems  an  odd  end  to  a  defer- 
ential perusal  of  Latin  authors  in  girlhood,  and  to  a 
spirited  elopement  with  the  preceptor  in  after  years ;  but 
the  transition  is  only  part  of  the  usual  irony  of  human 
life. 

The  world,  both  social  and  political,  into  which  Lady  Mary 
was  introduced  by  her  marriage  was  singularly  calculated  to 
awaken  the  faculties,  to  stimulate  the  intellect,  to  sharpen  the 
wit,  and  to  harden  the  heart  of  an  intelligent,  witty,  and  hard- 
headed  woman.  The  world  of  London — even  the  higher  world 
— is  now  too  large  to  be  easily  seen,  or  to  be  pithily  described. 
The  elements  are  so  many,  their  position  is  so  confused,  the 
display  of  their  mutual  counteraction  is  so  involved,  that  many 
years  must  pass  away  before  even  a  very  clever  woman  can 
thoroughly  comprehend  it  all.  She  will  cease  to  be  young 
and  handsome  long  ere  she  does  comprehend  it.  And  when 
she  at  last  understands  it,  it  does  not  seem  a  fit  subject  for 
concise  and  summary  wit.  Its  evident  complexity  refuses 
to  be  condensed  into  pithy  sayings  and  brilliant  bons-mots. 
It  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  philosophers,  with  less  brains 
perhaps  than  the  satirists  of  our  fathers,  but  with  more 
anxiety  to  tell  the  whole  truth,  more  toleration  for  the 


236  Literary  Studies. 


many-sidedness  of  the  world,  with  less  of  sharp  conciseness, 
but,  perhaps,  with  more  of  useful  completeness.  As  are  the 
books,  so  are  the  readers.  People  do  not  wish  to  read  satire 
now-a-days.  The  epigrams  even  of  Pope  would  fall  dull  and 
dead  upon  this  serious  and  investigating  time.  The  folly  of 
the  last  age  affected  levity ;  the  folly  of  this,  as  we  all  know, 
encases  itself  in  ponderous  volumes  which  defy  refutation, 
in  elaborate  arguments  which  prove  nothing,  in  theories 
which  confuse  the  uninstructed,  and  which  irritate  the  well- 
informed.  The  folly  of  a  hundred  years  since  was  at  least 
the  folly  of  Vivien,  but  ours  is  the  folly  of  Merlin  : — 

"  You  read  the  book,  my  pretty  Vivien, 
And  none  can  read  the  text,  not  even  I, 
And  none  can  read  the  comments  but  myseit — 
Oh,  the  results  are  simple !  " l 

Perhaps  people  did  not  know  then  as  much  as  they  know 
now:  indisputably  they  knew  nothing  like  so  much  in  a 
superficial  way  about  so  many  things  ;  but  they  knew  far 
more  correctly  where  their  knowledge  began  and  where  it 
stopped  ;  what  they  thought  and  why  they  thought  it :  they 
had  readier  illustrations  and  more  summary  phrases  ;  they 
could  say  at  once  what  it  came  to,  and  to  what  action  it 
should  lead. 

The  London  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  an  aristo- 
cratic world,  which  lived  to  itself,  which  displayed  the 
virtues  and  developed  the  vices  of  an  aristocracy  which  was 
under  little  fear  of  external  control  or  check  ;  which  had 
emancipated  itself  from  the  control  of  the  crown  ;  which  had 
not  fallen  under  the  control  of  the  bourgeoisie ;  which  saw 
its  own  life,  and  saw  that,  according  to  its  own  maxims, 
it  was  good.  Public  opinion  now  rules,  and  it  is  an  opinion 
which  constrains  the  conduct,  and  narrows  the  experience, 

1  Tennyson  :  "  Merlin  and  Vivien  ". 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  237 

and  dwarfs  the  violence,  and  minimises  the  frankness  of 
the  highest  classes,  while  it  diminishes  their  vices,  supports 
their  conscience,  and  precludes  their  grossness.  There  was 
nothing  like  this  in  the  last  century,  especially  in  the  early 
part  of  it.  The  aristocracy  came  to  town  from  their  remote 
estates — where  they  were  uncontrolled  by  any  opinion  or 
by  any  equal  society,  and  where  the  eccentricities  and  per- 
sonalities of  each  character  were  fostered  and  exaggerated 
— to  a  London  which  was  like  a  large  county  town,  in 
which  everybody  of  rank  knew  everybody  of  rank,  where  the 
eccentricities  of  each  rural  potentate  came  into  picturesque 
collision  with  the  eccentricities  of  other  rural  potentates, 
where  the  most  minute  allusions  to  the  peculiarities  and  the 
career  of  the  principal  persons  were  instantly  understood) 
where  squibs  were  on  every  table,  and  where  satire  was  in 
the  air.  No  finer  field  of  social  observation  could  be  found 
for  an  intelligent  and  witty  woman.  Lady  Mary  understood 
it  at  once. 

Nor  was  the  political  life  of  the  last  century  so  un- 
favourable to  the  influence  and  so  opposed  to  the  character- 
istic comprehension  of  women  as  our  present  life.  We  are 
now  ruled  by  political  discussion  and  by  a  popular  assembly, 
by  leading  articles,  and  by  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
women  can  scarcely  ever  compose  leaders,  and  no  woman 
sits  in  our  representative  chamber.  The  whole  tide  of 
abstract  discussion,  which  fills  our  mouths  and  deafens  our 
ears,  the  whole  complex  accumulation  of  facts  and  figures 
to  which  we  refer  everything,  and  which  we  apply  to  every- 
thing, is  quite  unfemale.  A  lady  has  an  insight  into  what 
she  sees ;  but  how  will  this  help  her  with  the  case  of  the 
Trent,  with  the  proper  structure  of  a  representative  chamber, 
with  Indian  finance  or  parliamentary  reform  ?  Women  are 
clever,  but  cleverness  of  itself  is  nothing  at  present.  A 
sharp  Irish  writer  described  himself  "as  bothered  entirely 


238  Literary  Studies. 


by  the  want  of  preliminary  information  "  ;  women  are  in 
the  same  difficulty  now.  Their  nature  may  hereafter  change, 
as  some  sanguine  advocates  suggest.  But  the  visible  species 
certainly  have  not  the  intellectual  providence  to  acquire  the 
vast  stores  of  dry  information  which  alone  can  enable  them 
to  judge  adequately  of  our  present  controversies.  We  are 
ruled  by  a  machinery  of  oratory  and  discussion,  in  which 
women  have  no  share,  and  which  they  hardly  comprehend  : 
we  are  engaged  on  subjects  which  need  an  arduous  learning, 
to  which  they  have  no  pretensions. 

In  the  last  century  much  of  this  was  very  different.  The 
court  still  counted  for  much  in  English  politics.  The  House 
of  Commons  was  the  strongest  power  in  the  State  machine, 
but  it  was  not  so  immeasurably  the  strongest  power  as  now. 
It  was  absolutely  supreme  within  its  sphere,  but  that  sphere 
was  limited.  It  could  absolutely  control  the  money,  and 
thereby  the  policy,  of  the  State.  Whether  there  should  be 
peace  or  war,  excise  or  no  excise,  it  could  and  did  despoti- 
cally determine.  It  was  supreme  in  its  choice  of  measures. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  had  only  a  secondary  influence  in 
the  choice  of  persons.  Who  the  Prime  Minister  was  to  be, 
was  a  question  not  only  theoretically  determinable,  but  in 
fact  determined  by  the  Sovereign.  The  House  of  Commons 
could  despotically  impose  two  conditions  :  first,  that  the 
Prime  Minister  should  be  a  man  of  sufficient  natural  ability, 
and  sufficient  parliamentary  experience,  to  conduct  the 
business  of  his  day  ;  secondly,  that  he  should  adopt  the 
policy  which  the  nation  wished.  But,  subject  to  a  conformity 
with  these  prerequisites,  the  selection  of  the  king  was  nearly 
uncontrolled.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was  the  greatest  master 
of  parliamentary  tactics  and  political  business  in  his  genera- 
tion ;  he  was  a  statesman  of  wide  views  and  consummate 
dexterity;  but  these  intellectual  gifts,  even  joined  to  im- 
mense parliamentary  experience,  were  not  alone  sufficient  to 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  239 

make  him  and  to  keep  him  Prime  Minister  of  England.  He 
also  maintained,  during  two  reigns,  a  complete  system  of 
court-strategy.  During  the  reign  of  George  II.  he  kept  a 
queen-watcher.  Lord  Hervey,  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in 
England,  the  keenest  observer,  perhaps,  in  England, 
was  induced,  by  very  dexterous  management,  to  remain 
at  court  during  many  years — to  observe  the  queen,  to 
hint  to  the  queen,  to  remove  wrong  impressions  from  the 
queen,  to  confirm  the  Walpolese  predilections  of  the  queen, 
to  report  every  incident  to  Sir  Robert.  The  records  of 
politics  tell  us  few  stranger  tales  than  that  it  should  have 
been  necessary  for  the  Sir  Robert  Peel  of  the  age  to  hire  a 
subordinate  as  safe  as  Eldon,  and  as  witty  as  Canning,  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  managing  a  clever  German  woman,  to 
whom  the  selection  of  a  Prime  Minister  was  practically 
intrusted.  Nor  was  this  the  only  court-campaign  which  Sir 
Robert  had  to  conduct,  or  in  which  he  was  successful.  Lady 
Mary,  who  hated  him  much,  has  satirically  described  the 
foundation  upon  which  his  court  favour  rested  during  the 
reign  of  George  I. : — 

"  The  new  court  with  all  their  train  was  arrived  before  I  left  the 
country.  The  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  returned  in  a  sort  of  triumph, 
with  the  apparent  merit  of  having  suffered  for  his  fidelity  to  the  succes- 
sion, and  was  reinstated  in  his  office  of  general,  etc.  In  short,  all  people 
who  had  suffered  any  hardship  or  disgrace  during  the  late  ministry  would 
have  it  believed  that  it  was  occasioned  by  their  attachment  to  the  House 
of  Hanover.  Even  Mr.  Walpole,  who  had  been  sent  to  the  Tower  for  a 
piece  of  bribery  proved  upon  him,  was  called  a  confessor  to  the  cause. 
But  he  had  another  piece  of  good  luck  that  yet  more  contributed  to  his 
advancement ;  he  had  a  very  handsome  sister,  whose  folly  had  lost  her 
reputation  in  London  ;  but  the  yet  greater  folly  of  Lord  Townshend,  who 
happened  to  be  a  neighbour  in  Norfolk  to  Mr.  Walpole,  had  occasioned 
his  being  drawn  in  to  marry  her  some  months  before  the  queen  died. 

"  Lord  Townshend  had  that  sort  of  understanding  which  commonly 
makes  men  honest  in  the  first  part  of  their  lives ;  they  follow  the  instruc- 
tions of  their  tutor,  and,  till  somebody  thinks  it  worth  their  while  to  show 


240  Literary  Studies. 


them  a  new  path,  go  regularly  on  in  the  road  where  they  are  set.  Lord 
Townshend  had  then  been  many  years  an  excellent  husband  to  a  sober 
wife,  a  kind  master  to  all  his  servants  and  dependents,  a  serviceable 
relation  wherever  it  was  in  his  power,  and  followed  the  instinct  of  nature 
in  being  fond  of  his  children.  Such  a  sort  of  behaviour  without  any 
glaring  absurdity,  either  in  prodigality  or  avarice,  always  gains  a  man  the 
reputation  of  reasonable  and  honest ;  and  this  was  his  character  when 
the  Earl  of  Godolphin  sent  him  envoy  to  the  States,  not  doubting  but  he 
would  be  faithful  to  his  orders,  without  giving  himself  the  trouble  of 
criticising  on  them,  which  is  what  all  ministers  wish  in  an  envoy.  Roba 
tun,  a  French  refugee  (secretary  to  Bernstoff,  one  of  the  Elector  of 
Hanover's  ministers),  happened  then  to  be  at  the  Hague,  and  was  civilly 
received  at  Lord  Townshend's,  who  treated  him  at  his  table  with  the 
English  hospitality,  and  he  was  charmed  with  a  reception  which  his  birth 
and  education  did  not  entitle  him  to.  Lord  Townshend  was  recalled 
when  the  queen  changed  her  ministry ;  his  wife  died,  and  he  retired  into 
the  country,  where  (as  I  have  said  before),  Walpole  had  art  enough  to 
make  him  marry  his  sister  Dolly.  At  that  time,  I  believe,  he  did  not 
propose  much  more  advantage  by  the  match  than  to  get  rid  of  a  girl  that 
lay  heavy  on  his  hands. 

"  When  King  George  ascended  the  throne,  he  was  surrounded  by  all 
his  German  ministers  and  playfellows,  male  and  female.  Baron  Goritz 
was  the  most  considerable  among  them  both  for  birth  and  fortune.  He 
had  managed  the  king's  treasury  thirty  years  with  the  utmost  fidelity  and 
economy ;  and  had  the  true  German  honesty,  being  a  plain,  sincere,  and 
unambitious  man.  Bernstoff,  the  secretary,  was  of  a  different  turn.  He 
was  avaricious,  artful,  and  designing ;  and  had  got  his  share  in  the  king's 
councils  by  bribing  his  women.  Robotun  was  employed  in  these  matters, 
and  had  the  sanguine  ambition  of  a  Frenchman.  He  resolved  there 
should  be  an  English  ministry  of  his  choosing ;  and,  knowing  none  of 
them  personally  but  Townshend,  he  had  not  failed  to  recommend  him 
to  his  master,  and  his  master  to  the  king,  as  the  only  proper  person  for 
the  important  post  of  Secretary  of  State ;  and  he  entered  upon  that  office 
with  universal  applause,  having  at  that  time  a  very  popular  character, 
which  he  might  possibly  have  retained  for  ever  if  he  had  not  been 
entirely  governed  by  his  wife  and  her  brother  R.  Walpole,  whom  he 
immediately  advanced  to  be  paymaster,  esteemed  a  post  of  exceeding 
profit,  and  very  necessary  for  his  indebted  estate." 

And  it  is  indisputable  that  Lord  Townshend,  who 
thought  he  was  a  very  great  statesman,  and  who  began  as 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  24! 

the  patron  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  nevertheless  was  only 
his  court-agent — the  manager  on  his  behalf  of  the  king  and 
of  the  king's  mistresses. 

We  need  not  point  out  at  length,  for  the  passage  we 
have  cited  of  itself  indicates,  how  well  suited  this  sort  of 
politics  is  to  the  comprehension  and  to  the  pen  of  a  keen- 
sighted  and  witty  woman. 

Nor  was  the  court  the  principal  improver  of  the  London 
society  of  the  age.  The  House  of  Commons  was  then  a 
part  of  society.  This  separate,  isolated,  aristocratic  world, 
of  which  we  have  spoken,  had  an  almost  undisputed  com- 
mand of  both  Houses  in  the  Legislature.  The  letter  of 
the  constitution  did  not  give  it  them,  and  no  law  appointed 
that  it  should  be  so.  But  the  aristocratic  class  were  by  far 
the  most  educated,  by  far  the  most  respected,  by  far  the 
most  eligible  part  of  the  nation.  Even  in  the  boroughs, 
where  there  was  universal  suffrage,  or  something  near  it, 
they  were  the  favourites.  Accordingly,  they  gave  the  tone 
to  the  House  of  Commons ;  they  required  the  small  com- 
munity of  members  who  did  not  belong  to  their  order  to 
conform  as  far  as  they  could  to  their  usages,  and  to  guide 
themselves  by  their  code  of  morality  and  of  taste.  In  the 
main  the  House  of  Commons  obeyed  these  injunctions,  and 
it  was  repaid  by  being  incorporated  within  the  aristocratic 
world :  it  became  not  only  the  council  of  the  nation,  but 
the  debating-club  of  fashion.  That  which  was  "received" 
modified  the  recipient.  The  remains  of  the  aristocratic 
society,  wherever  we  find  them,  are  penetrated  not  only 
with  an  aristocratic  but  with  a  political  spirit.  They 
breathe  a  sort  of  atmosphere  of  politics.  In  the  London 
of  the  present  day,  the  vast  miscellaneous  bourgeois  London, 
we  all  know  that  this  is  not  so.  "  In  the  country,"  said  a 
splenetic  observer,  "people  talk  politics;  at  London  dinners 
you  talk  nothing ;  between  two  pillars  of  crinoline  you  eat 
VOL.  ii.  16 


242  Literary  Studies. 

and  are  resigned."  A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  as  far 
as  our  rather  ample  materials  inform  us,  people  in  London 
talked  politics  just  as  they  now  talk  politics  in  Worcester- 
shire ;  and  being  on  the  spot,  and  cooped  up  with  politi- 
cians in  a  small  social  world,  their  talk  was  commonly 
better.  They  knew  the  people  of  whom  they  spoke,  even 
if  they  did  not  know  the  subjects  with  which  they  were 
concerned. 

No  element  is  better  fitted  to  counteract  the  characteristic 
evil  of  an  aristocratic  society.  The  defect  of  such  societies 
in  all  times  has  been  frivolity.  All  talk  has  tended  to  be- 
come gossip ;  it  has  ceased  to  deal  with  important  subjects, 
and  has  devoted  itself  entirely  to  unimportant  incidents. 
Whether  the  Due  de  —  -  has  more  or  less  prevailed  with 

the  Marquise  de is  a  sort  of  common  form  into  which 

any  details  may  be  fitted,  and  any  names  inserted.  The 
frivolities  of  gallantry — never  very  important  save  to  some 
woman  who  has  long  been  dead — fill  the  records  of  all 
aristocracies  who  lived  under  a  despotism,  who  had  no 
political  authority,  no  daily  political  cares.  The  aristocracy 
of  England  in  the  last  century  was,  at  any  rate,  exempt  from 
this  reproach.  There  is  in  the  records  of  it  not  only  an 
intellectuality,  which  would  prove  little — for  every  clever 
describer,  by  the  subtleties  of  his  language  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  composition,  gives  a  sort  of  intellectuality  even 
to  matters  which  have  no  pretension  to  it  themselves — but 
likewise  a  pervading  medium  of  political  discussion.  The 
very  language  in  which  they  are  written  is  the  language  of 
political  business.  Horace  Walpole  was  certainly  by  nature 
no  politician  and  no  orator;  yet  no  discerning  critic  can  read 
a  page  of  his  voluminous  remains  without  feeling  that  the 
writer  has  through  life  lived  with  politicians  and  talked  with 
politicians.  A  keen  observant  mind,  not  naturally  political, 
but  capable  of  comprehending  and  viewing  any  subject  which 


Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  243 


was  brought  before  it,  has  chanced  to  have  this  particular 
subject — politics — presented  to  it  for  a  lifetime  ;  and  all  its 
delineations,  all  its  efforts,  all  its  thoughts,  reflect  it,  and 
are  coloured  by  it.  In  all  the  records  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  tonic  of  business  is  seen  to  combat  the  relaxing 
effect  of  habitual  luxury. 

This  element,  too,  is  favourable  to  a  clever  woman.  The 
more  you  can  put  before  such  a  person  the  greater  she  will 
be ;  the  less  her  world,  the  less  she  is.  If  you  place  the 
most  keen-sighted  lady  in  the  midst  of  the  pure  futilities  and 
unmitigated  flirtations  of  an  aristocracy,  she  will  sink  to  the 
level  of  those  elements,  and  will  scarcely  seem  to  wish  for 
anything  more,  or  to  be  competent  for  anything  higher. 
But  if  she  is  placed  in  an  intellectual  atmosphere,  in  which 
political  or  other  important  subjects  are  currently  passing, 
you  will  probably  find  that  she  can  talk  better  upon  them 
than  you  can,  without  your  being  able  to  explain  whence 
she  derived  either  her  information  or  her  talent. 

The  subjects,  too,  which  were  discussed  in  the  political 
society  of  the  last  age  were  not  so  inscrutable  to  women  as 
our  present  subjects ;  and  even  when  there  were  great  diffi- 
culties they  were  more  on  a  level  with  men  in  the  discussion 
of  them  than  they  now  are.  It  was  no  disgrace  to  be  desti- 
tute of  preliminary  information  at  a  time  in  which  there 
were  no  accumulated  stores  from  which  such  information 
could  be  derived.  A  lightening  element  of  female  influence 
is  therefore  to  be  found  through  much  of  the  politics  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Lady  Mary  entered  easily  into  all  this  world,  both  social 
and  political.  She  had  beauty  for  the  fashionable,  satire  for 
the  witty,  knowledge  for  the  learned,  and  intelligence  for  the 
politician.  She  was  not  too  refined  to  shrink  from  what  we 
now  consider  the  coarseness  of  that  time.  Many  of  her 
verses  themselves  are  scarcely  adapted  for  our  decorous 


244  Literary  Studies. 


pages.      Perhaps  the  following  give  no  unfair  idea  of  her 
ordinary  state  of  mind  : — 

"TOWN  ECLOGUES. 

"ROXANA;   OR,  THE  DRAWING-ROOM. 

'  Roxana,  from  the  court  retiring  late, 
Sigh'd  her  soft  sorrows  at  St.  James's  Gate. 
Such  heavy  thoughts  lay  brooding  in  her  breast, 
Not  her  own  chairmen  with  more  weight  oppress'd ; 
They  groan  the  cruel  load  they're  doom'd  to  bear ; 
She  in  these  gentle  sounds  express'd  her  care. 

"  '  Was  it  for  this  that  I  these  roses  wear  ? 
For  this  new-set  the  jewels  for  my  hair  ? 
Ah  !  Princess  !  with  what  zeal  have  I  pursued ! 
Almost  forgot  the  duty  of  a  prude. 
Thinking  I  never  could  attend  too  soon, 
I've  miss'd  my  prayers,  to  get  me  dress'd  by  noon. 
For  thee,  ah  !  what  for  thee  did  I  resign  ! 
My  pleasures,  passions,  all  that  e'er  was  mine. 
I  sacrific'd  both  modesty  and  ease, 
Left  operas  and  went  to  filthy  plays  ; 
Double-entendres  shock  my  tender  ear  ; 
Yet  even  this  for  thee  I  choose  to  bear. 
In  glowing  youth,  when  nature  bids  be  gay, 
And  every  joy  of  life  before  me  lay, 
By  honour  prompted,  and  by  pride  restrain'd, 
The  pleasures  of  the  young  my  soul  disdain'd : 
Sermons  I  sought,  and  with  a  mien  severe 
Censur'd  my  neighbours,  and  said  daily  prayer. 

"  '  Alas !  how  chang'd — with  the  same  sermon-mien 
That  once  I  pray'd,  the  "  What  d'ye  call't "  J  I've  seen. 
Ah  !  cruel  Princess,  for  thy  sake  I've  lost 
That  reputation  which  so  dear  had  cost : 
I,  who  avoided  every  public  place, 
When  bloom  and  beauty  bade  me  show  my  face, 
Now  near  thee  constant  every  night  abide 
With  never-failing  duty  by  thy  side ; 

1 A  mock-tragedy  by  Gay. 


Lady  Mary   Worthy  Montagu.  245 

Myself  and  daughters  standing  on  a  row, 

To  all  the  foreigners  a  goodly  show ! 

Oft  had  your  drawing-room  been  sadly  thin, 

And  merchants'  wives  close  by  the  chair  been  seen, 

Had  not  I  amply  rilled  the  empty  space, 

And  saved  your  highness  from  the  dire  disgrace. 

"  'Yet  Coquetilla's  artifice  prevails, 
When  all  my  merit  and  my  duty  fails ; 
That  Coquetilla,  whose  deluding  airs 
Corrupt  our  virgins,  still  our  youth  ensnares  ; 
So  sunk  her  character,  so  lost  her  fame, 
Scarce  visited  before  your  highness  came : 
Yet  for  the  bed-chamber  'tis  her  you  choose, 
When  zeal  and  fame  and  virtue  you  refuse. 
Ah  !  worthy  choice  !  not  one  of  all  your  train 
Whom  censure  blasts  not,  and  dishonours  stain  1 
Let  the  nice  hind  now  suckle  dirty  pigs, 
And  the  proud  pea-hen  hatch  the  cuckoo's  eggs  ! 
Let  Iris  leave  her  paint  and  own  her  age, 
And  grave  Suffolk  a  wed  a  giddy  page ! 
A  greater  miracle  is  daily  view'd, 
A  virtuous  Princess  with  a  court  so  lewd. 

"  '  I  know  thee,  Court !  with  all  thy  treach'rous  wiles, 
Thy  false  caresses  and  undoing  smiles  ! 
Ah  !  Princess,  learn'd  in  all  the  courtly  arts, 
To  cheat  our  hopes,  and  yet  to  gain  our  hearts  ! 

"  '  Large  lovely  bribes  are  the  great  statesman's  aim  ; 
And  the  neglected  patriot  follows  fame. 
The  Prince  is  ogled  ;  some  the  King  pursue ; 
But  your  Roxana  only  follows  you. 
Despis'd  Roxana,  cease,  and  try  to  find 
Some  other,  since  the  Princess  proves  unkind : 
Perhaps  it  is  not  hard  to  find  at  court, 
If  not  a  greater,  a  more  firm  support.'  " 

There  was  every  kind  of  rumour  as  to  Lady  Mary's  own 
conduct,  and  we  have  no  means  of  saying  whether  any  of 
these  rumours  were  true.  There  is  no  evidence  against  her 
which  is  worthy  of  the  name.  So  far  as  can  be  proved,  she 
was  simply  a  gay,  witty,  bold-spoken,  handsome  woman, 


246  Literary  Studies. 


who  made  many  enemies  by  unscrupulous  speech,  and  many 
friends  by  unscrupulous  flirtation.  We  may  believe,  but  we 
cannot  prove,  that  she  found  her  husband  tedious,  and  was 
dissatisfied  that  his  slow,  methodical,  borne  mind  made  so 
little  progress  in  the  political  world,  and  understood  so  little 
of  what  really  passed  there.  Unquestionably  she  must  have 
much  preferred  talking  to  Lord  Hervey  to  talking  with  Mr. 
Montagu.  But  we  must  not  credit  the  idle  scandals  of  a 
hundred  years  since,  because  they  may  have  been  true,  or 
because  they  appear  not  inconsistent  with  the  characters 
of  those  to  whom  they  relate.  There  were  legends  against 
every  attractive  and  fashionable  woman  in  that  age,  and 
most  of  the  legends  were  doubtless  exaggerations  and  in- 
ventions. We  cannot  know  the  truth  of  such  matters  now, 
and  it  would  hardly  be  worth  searching  into  if  we  could  ; 
but  the  important  fact  is  certain,  Lady  Mary  lived  in  a 
world  in  which  the  worst  rumours  were  greedily  told, 
and  often  believed,  about  her  and  others ;  and  the  moral 
refinement  of  a  woman  must  always  be  impaired  by  such 
a  contact. 

Lady  Mary  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  incur  the  partial 
dislike  of  one  of  the  great  recorders  of  that  age,  and  the 
bitter  hostility  of  the  other.  She  was  no  favourite  with 
Horace  Walpole,  and  the  bitter  enemy  of  Pope.  The  first 
is  easily  explicable.  Horace  Walpole  never  loved  his  father, 
but  recompensed  himself  by  hating  his  father's  enemies. 
No  one  connected  with  the  opposition  to  Sir  Robert  is 
spared  by  his  son,  if  there  be  a  fair  opportunity  for  unfavour- 
able insinuation.  Mr.  Wortley  Montagu  was  the  very 
man  for  a  grave  mistake.  He  made  the  very  worst  that 
could  be  made  in  that  age.  He  joined  the  party  of  con- 
stitutional exiles  on  the  Opposition  bench,  who  had  no  real 
objection  to  the  policy  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole ;  who,  when 
they  had  a  ghance,  adopted  that  policy  themselves ;  who 


Lady  Mary   Worthy  Montagu.  247 

were  discontented  because  they  had  no  power,  and  he  had 
all  the  power.  Probably  too,  being  a  man  eminently  re- 
spectable, Mr.  Montagu  was  frightened  at  Sir  Robert's 
unscrupulous  talk  and  not  very  scrupulous  actions.  At  any 
rate,  he  opposed  Sir  Robert ;  and  thence  many  a  little 
observation  of  Horace  Walpole's  against  Lady  Mary. 

Why  Pope  and  Lady  Mary  quarrelled  is  a  question  on 
which  much  discussion  has  been  expended,  and  on  which  a 
judicious  German  professor  might  even  now  compose  an 
interesting  and  exhaustive  , monograph.  A  curt  English 
critic  will  be  more  apt  to  ask,  "  Why  they  should  not  have 
quarrelled  ?  "  We  know  that  Pope  quarrelled  with  almost 
every  one ;  we  know  that  Lady  Mary  quarrelled  or  half 
quarrelled  with  most  of  her  acquaintances.  Why,  then, 
should  they  not  have  quarrelled  with  one  another  ? 

It  is  certain  that  they  were  very  intimate  at  one  time ; 
for  Pope  wrote  to  her  some  of  the  most  pompous  letters  of 
compliment  in  the  language.  And  the  more  intimate  they 
were  to  begin  with,  the  more  sure  they  were  to  be  enemies 
in  the  end.  Human  nature  will  not  endure  that  sort  of 
proximity.  An  irritable,  vain  poet,  who  always  fancies  that 
people  are  trying  to  hurt  him,  whom  no  argument  could 
convince  that  every  one  is  not  perpetually  thinking  about 
him,  cannot  long  be  friendly  with  a  witty  woman  of  un- 
scrupulous tongue,  who  spares  no  one,  who  could  sacrifice  a 
good  friend  for  a  bad  bon-mot,  who  thinks  of  the  person 
whom  she  is  addressing,  not  of  those  about  whom  she  is 
speaking.  The  natural  relation  of  the  two  is  that  of  victim 
and  torturer,  and  no  other  will  long  continue.  There  appear 
also  to  have  been  some  money  matters  (of  all  things  in  the 
world)  between  the  two.  Lady  Mary  was  intrusted  by  Pope 
with  some  money  to  use  in  speculation  during  the  highly 
fashionable  panic  which  derives  its  name  from  the  South- 
Sea  Bubble, — and  a,s  of  course  it  was  lost,  Pope  was  very 


248  Literary  Studies. 


angry.  Another  story  goes,  that  Pope  made  serious  love 
to  Lady  Mary,  and  that  she  laughed  at  him  ;  upon  which  a 
very  personal,  and  not  always  very  correct,  controversy  has 
arisen  as  to  the  probability  or  improbability  of  Pope's  ex- 
citing a  lady's  feelings.  Lord  Byron  took  part  in  it  with 
his  usual  acuteness  and  incisiveness,  and  did  not  leave  the 
discussion  more  decent  than  he  found  it.  Pope  doubtless 
was  deformed,  and  had  not  the  large  red  health  that  un<- 
civilised  women  admire;  yet  a  clever  lady  might  have  taken 
a  fancy  to  him,  for  the  little  creature  knew  what  he  was 
saying.  There  is,  however,  no  evidence  that  Lady  Mary 
did  so.  We  only  know  that  there  was  a  sudden  coolness  or 
quarrel  between  them,  and  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  a 
long  and  bitter  hatred. 

In  their  own  times  Pope's  sensitive  disposition  probably 
gave  Lady  Mary  a  great  advantage.  Her  tongue  perhaps 
gave  him  more  pain  than  his  pen  gave  her.  But  in  later 
times  she  has  fared  the  worst.  What  between  Pope's 
sarcasms  and  Horace  Walpole's  anecdotes,  Lady  Mary's 
reputation  has  suffered  very  considerably.  As  we  have 
said,  her  offences  are  non  proven;  there  is  no  evidence  to 
convict  her;  but  she  is  likely  to  be  condemned  upon  the 
general  doctrine  that  a  person  who  is  accused  of  much  is 
probably  guilty  of  something. 

During  many  years  Lady  Mary  continued  to  live  a  dis- 
tinguished fashionable  and  social  life,  with  a  single  remark- 
able break.  This  interval  was  her  journey  to  Constantinople. 
The  powers  that  then  were,  thought  fit  to  send  Mr.  Wortley 
as  ambassador  to  Constantinople,  and  his  wife  accompanied 
him.  During  that  visit  she  kept  a  journal,  and  wrote  sundry 
real  letters,  out  of  which,  after  her  return,  she  composed  a 
series  of  unreal  letters  as  to  all  she  saw  and  did  in  Turkey, 
and  on  the  journey  there  and  back,  which  were  published, 
and  which  are  still  amusing,  if  not  alwavs  select,  reading. 


Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  249 

The  Sultan  was  not  then  the  "  dying  man  " ;  he  was  the 
"Grand  Turk".  He  was  not  simply  a  potentate  to  be 
counted  with,  but  a  power  to  be  feared.  The  appearance  of 
a  Turkish  army  on  the  Danube  had  in  that  age  much  the 
same  effect  as  the  appearance  of  a  Russian  army  now.  It 
was  an  object  of  terror  and  dread.  A  mission  at  Constan- 
tinople was  not  then  a  bureau  for  interference  in  Turkey, 
but  a  serious  office  for  transacting  business  with  a  great 
European  power.  A  European  ambassador  at  Constanti- 
nople now  presses  on  the  Government  there  impracticable 
reforms;  he  then  asked  for  useful  aid.  Lady  Mary  was 
evidently  impressed  by  the  power  of  the  country  in  which 
she  sojourned ;  and  we  observe  in  her  letters  evident  traces 
of  the  notion  that  the  Turk  was  the  dread  of  Christendom,— 
which  is  singular  now,  when  the  Turk  is  its  protege. 

Lady  Mary  had  another  advantage  too.  Many  sorts  of 
books  make  steady  progress ;  a  scientific  treatise  published 
now  is  sure  to  be  fuller  and  better  than  one  on  the  same 
subject  written  long  ago.  But  with  books  of  travel  in  a 
stationary  country  the  presumption  is  the  contrary.  In  that 
case  the  old  book  is  probably  the  better  book.  The  first 
traveller  writes  out  a  plain,  straightforward  description  of 
the  most  striking  objects  with  which  he  meets ;  he  believes 
that  his  readers  know  nothing  of  the  country  of  which  he  is 
writing,  for  till  he  visited  it  he  probably  knew  nothing  him- 
self; and,  if  he  is  sensible,  he  describes  simply  and  clearly 
all  which  most  impresses  him.  He  has  no  motive  for  not 
dwelling  upon  the  principal  things,  and  most  likely  will  do 
so,  as  they  are  probably  the  most  conspicuous.  The 
second  traveller  is  not  so  fortunate.  He  is  always  in 
terror  of  the  traveller  who  went  before.  He  fears  the  criti- 
cism,— "  This  is  all  very  well,  but  we  knew  the  whole  of  it 
before.  No.  i  said  that  at  page  103."  In  consequence  he 
js  timid,  He  picks  and  skips.  He  fancies  that  you  are 


250  Literary  Studies. 


acquainted  with  all  which  is  great  and  important,  and  he 
dwells,  for  your  good  and  to  your  pain,  upon  that  which  is 
small  and  unimportant.  For  ordinary  readers  no  result  can 
be  more  fatal.  They  perhaps  never  read — they  certainly  do 
not  remember — anything  upon  the  subject.  The  curious 
minutiae,  so  elaborately  set  forth,  are  quite  useless,  for  they 
have  not  the  general  framework  in  which  to  store  them. 
Not  knowing  much  of  the  first  traveller's  work,  that  of  the 
second  is  a  supplement  to  a  treatise  with  which  they  are 
unacquainted.  In  consequence  they  do  not  read  it.  Lady 
Mary  made  good  use  of  her  position  in  the  front  of  the  herd 
of  tourists.  She  told  us  what  she  saw  in  Turkey — all  the 
best  of  what  she  saw,  and  all  the  most  remarkable  things — 
and  told  it  very  well. 

Nor  was  this  work  the  only  fruit  of  her  Turkish  travels  ; 
she  brought  home  the  notion  of  inoculation.  Like  most 
improvers,  she  was  roughly  spoken  to.  Medical  men  were 
angry  because  the  practice  was  not  in  their  books,  and  con- 
servative men  were  cross  at  the  agony  of  a  new  idea.  Re- 
ligious people  considered  it  wicked  to  have  a  disease  which 
Providence  did  not  think  fit  to  send  you  ;  and  simple  people 
"did  not  like  to  make  themselves  ill  of  their  own  accord". 
She  triumphed,  however,  over  all  obstacles;  inoculation, 
being  really  found  to  lengthen  life  and  save  complexions, 
before  long  became  general. 

One  of  the  first  patients  upon  whom  Lady  Mary  tried  the 
novelty  was  her  own  son,  and  many  considerate  people 
thought  it  "  worthy  of  observation  "  that  he  turned  out  a 
scamp.  When  he  ran  away  from  school,  the  mark  of  in- 
oculation, then  rare,  was  used  to  describe  him,  and  after  he 
was  recovered,  he  never  did  anything  which  was  good. 
His  case  seems  to  have  been  the  common  one  in  which 
Nature  (as  we  speak)  requites  herself  for  the  strongheaded- 
ness  of  several  generations  by  the  weakness  of  one,  Hjs, 


Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  251 

father's  and  his  mother's  family  had  been  rather  able  for 
some  generations  ;  the  latter  remarkably  so.  But  this  boy 
had  always  a  sort  of  practical  imbecility.  He  was  not 
stupid,  but  he  never  did  anything  right.  He  exemplified 
another  curious  trait  of  Nature's  practice.  Mr.  Montagu 
was  obstinate,  though  sensible ;  Lady  Mary  was  flighty, 
though  clever.  Nature  combined  the  defects.  Young 
Edward  Montagu  was  both  obstinate  and  flighty.  The 
only  pleasure  he  can  ever  have  given  his  parents  was  the 
pleasure  of  feeling  their  own  wisdom.  He  showed  that  they 
were  right  before  marriage  in  not  settling  the  paternal 
property  upon  him,  for  he  ran  through  every  shilling  he 
possessed.  He  was  not  sensible  enough  to  keep  his  property, 
and  just  not  fool  enough  for  the  law  to  take  it  from  him. 

After  her  return  from  Constantinople,  Lady  Mary  con- 
tinued to  lead  the  same  half-gay  and  half-literary  life  as 
before  ;  but  at  last  she  did  not  like  it.  Various  ingenious 
inquirers  into  antiquated  minutice  have  endeavoured,  without 
success,  to  discover  reasons  of  detail  which  might  explain 
her  dissatisfaction.  They  have  suggested  that  some  irregular 
love-affair  was  unprosperous,  and  hinted  that  she  and  her 
husband  were  not  on  good  terms.  The  love-affair,  how- 
ever, when  looked  for,  cannot  be  found  ;  and  though  she 
and  her  husband  would  appear  to  have  been  but  distantly 
related,  they  never  had  any  great  quarrel  which  we  know  of. 
Neither  seems  to  have  been  fitted  to  give  the  other  much 
pleasure,  and  each  had  the  fault  of  which  the  other  was 
most  impatient.  Before  marriage  Lady  Mary  had  charmed 
Mr.  Montagu,  but  she  had  also  frightened  him ;  after 
marriage  she  frightened,  but  did  not  charm  him.  He  was 
formal  and  composed  ;  she  was  flighty  and  vutree.  "  What 
will  she  do  next  ?  "  was  doubtless  the  poor  man's  daily 
feeling;  and  "Will  he  ever  do  anything?"  was  probably 
also  hers,  Torpid  business,  which  is  always  going  on,  but 


252  Literary  Studies. 


which  never  seems  to  come  to  anything,  is  simply  aggravat- 
ing to  a  clever  woman.  Even  the  least  impatient  lady  can 
hardly  endure  a  perpetual  process  for  which  there  is  little 
visible  and  nothing  theatrical  to  show ;  and  Lady  Mary  was 
by  no  means  the  least  impatient.  But  there  was  no  abrupt 
quarrel  between  the  two  ;  and  a  husband  and  wife  who  have 
lived  together  more  than  twenty  years  can  generally  manage 
to  continue  to  live  together  during  a  second  twenty  years. 
These  reasons  of  detail  are  scarcely  the  reasons  for  Lady 
Mary's  wishing  to  break  away  from  the  life  to  which  she 
had  so  long  been  used.  Yet  there  was  clearly  some 
reason,  for  Lady  Mary  went  abroad,  and  stayed  there  during 
many  years. 

We  believe  that  the  cause  was  not  special  and  peculiar 
to  the  case,  but  general,  and  due  to  the  invariable  principles 
of  human  nature,  at  all  times  and  everywhere.  If  historical 
experience  proves  anything,  it  proves  that  the  earth  is  not 
adapted  for  a  life  of  mere  intellectual  pleasure.  The  life  of 
a  brute  on  earth,  though  bad,  is  possible.  It  is  not  even 
difficult  to  many  persons  to  destroy  the  higher  part  of  their 
nature  by  a  continual  excess  in  sensual  pleasure.  It  is  even 
more  easy  and  possible  to  dull  all  the  soul  and  most  of  the 
mind  by  a  vapid  accumulation  of  torpid  comfort.  Many  of 
the  middle  classes  spend  their  whole  lives  in  a  constant 
series  of  petty  pleasures,  and  an  undeviating  pursuit  of 
small  material  objects.  The  gross  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and 
the  tiresome  pursuit  of  petty  comfort,  are  quite  suitable  to 
such  "  a  being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one  ". 
What  is  not  possible  is,  to  combine  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  and 
the  enjoyment  of  comfort  with  the  characteristic  pleasures 
of  a  strong  mind.  If  you  wish  for  luxury,  you  must 
not  nourish  the  inquisitive  instinct.  The  great  problems  of 
human  life  are  in  the  air ;  they  are  without  us  in  the  life 
we  see,  within  us  in  the  life  we  feel,  A  quick  intellect 


Lady  Mary   Worthy  Montagti.  253 

feels  them  in  a  moment.  It  says,  "  Why  am  I  here  ? 
What  is  pleasure,  that  I  desire  it  ?  What  is  comfort,  that 
I  seek  it  ?  What  are  carpets  and  tables  ?  What  is  the  lust 
of  the  eye  ?  What  is  the  pride  of  life,  that  they  should 
satisfy  me  ?  I  was  not  made  for  such  things.  I  hate  them, 
because  I  have  liked  them ;  I  loathe  them,  because  it 
seems  that  there  is  nothing  else  for  me."  An  impatient 
woman's  intellect  comes  to  this  point  in  a  moment ;  it  says, 
"  Society  is  good,  but  I  have  seen  society.  What  is  the  use 
of  talking,  or  hearing  bon-mots  ?  I  have  done  both  till  I  am 
tired  of  doing  either.  I  have  laughed  till  I  have  no  wish  to 
laugh  again,  and  made  others  laugh  till  I  have  hated  them 
for  being  such  fools.  As  for  instruction,  I  have  seen  the 
men  of  genius  of  my  time ;  and  they  tell  me  nothing, — 
nothing  of  what  I  want  to  know.  They  are  choked  with 
intellectual  frivolities.  They  cannot  say  '  whence  I  came, 
and  whither  I  go '.  W7hat  do  they  know  of  themselves  ? 
It  is  not  from  literary  people  that  we  can  learn  anything ; 
more  likely,  they  will  copy,  or  try  to  copy,  the  manners  of 
lords,  and  make  ugly  love,  in  bad  imitation  of  those  who 
despise  them."  Lady  Mary  felt  this,  as  we  believe.  She 
had  seen  all  the  world  of  England,  and  it  did  not  satisfy. 
She  turned  abroad,  not  in  pursuit  of  definite  good,  nor  from 
fear  of  particular  evil,  but  from  a  vague  wish  for  some  great 
change — from  a  wish  to  escape  from  a  life  which  harassed 
the  soul,  but  did  not  calm  it ;  which  awakened  the  intellect 
without  answering  its  questions. 

She  lived  abroad  for  more  than  twenty  years,  at  Avignon 
and  Venice  and  elsewhere  ;  and,  during  that  absence,  she 
wrote  the  letters  which  compose  the  greater  part  of  her 
works.  And  there  is  no  denying  that  they  are  good  letters. 
The  art  of  note-writing  may  become  classical — it  is  for  the 
present  age  to  provide  models  of  that  sort  of  composition — 
but  letters  have  perished.  Nobody  but  a  bore  now  takes 


254  Literary  Studies. 

pains  enough  to  make  them  pleasant ;  and  the  only  result 
of  a  bore's  pains  is  to  make  them  unpleasant.  The 
correspondence  of  the  present  day  is  a  continual  labour  with- 
out any  visible  achievement.  The  dying  penny-a-liner  said 
with  emphasis:  "  That  which  I  have  written  has  perished  ". 
We  might  all  say  so  of  the  mass  of  petty  letters  we  write. 
They  are  a  heap  of  small  atoms,  each  with  some  interest 
individually,  but  with  no  interest  as  a  whole ;  all  the  items 
concern  us,  but  they  all  add  up  to  nothing.  In  the  last 
century,  cultivated  people  who  sat  down  to  write  a  letter 
took  pains  to  have  something  to  say,  and  took  pains  to  say 
it.  The  postage  was  perhaps  ninepence ;  and  it  would  be 
impudent  to  make  a  correspondent  pay  ninepence  for  nothing. 
Still  more  impudent  was  it,  after  having  made  him  pay 
ninepence,  to  give  him  the  additional  pain  of  making  out 
what  was  half  expressed.  People,  too,  wrote  to  one  another 
then,  not  unfrequently,  who  had  long  been  separated,  and 
who  required  much  explanation  and  many  details  to  make 
the  life  of  each  intelligible  to  the  other.  The  correspondence 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  like  a  series  of  telegrams  with 
amplified  headings.  There  is  not  more  than  one  idea  ;  and 
that  idea  comes  soon,  and  is  soon  over.  The  best  correspond- 
ence of  the  last  age  is  rather  like  a  good  light  article, — in 
which  the  points  are  studiously  made, — in  which  the  effort 
to  make  them  is  studiously  concealed, — in  which  a  series  ol 
selected  circumstances  is  set  forth, — in  which  you  feel,  but 
are  not  told,  that  the  principle  of  the  writer's  selection  was 
to  make  his  composition  pleasant. 

In  letter-writing  of  this  kind  Lady  Mary  was  very  skilful. 
She  has  the  highest  merit  of  letter-writing — she  is  concise 
without  being  affected.  Fluency,  which  a  great  orator  pro- 
nounced to  be  the  curse  of  orators,  is  at  least  equally  the 
curse  of  writers.  There  are  many  people,  many  ladies 
especially,  who  can  write  letters  at  any  length,  in  any 


Lady  Mary  \Vorlley  Montagu.  255 

number,  and  at  any  time.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  the 
letters  so  written  are  not  good  letters.  Composition  of  any 
-sort  implies  consideration ;  you  must  see  where  you  are 
going  before  you  can  go  straight,  or  can  pick  your  steps  as 
you  go.  On  the  other  hand,  too  much  consideration  is 
unfavourable  to  the  ease  of  letter-writing,  and  perhaps  of  all 
writing.  A  letter  too  much  studied  wants  flow ;  it  is  a 
museum  of  hoarded  sentences.  Each  sentence  sounds 
effective ;  but  the  whole  composition  wants  vitality.  It  was 
written  with  the  memory  instead  of  the  mind  ;  and  every 
reader  feels  the  effect,  though  only  the  critical  reader  can 
detect  the  cause.  Lady  Mary  understood  all  this.  She 
said  what  she  had  to  say  in  words  that  were  always  graphic 
and  always  sufficiently  good,  but  she  avoided  curious  felicity. 
Her  expressions  seemed  choice,  but  not  chosen. 

At  the  end  of  her  life  Lady  Mary  pointed  a  subordinate 
but  not  a  useless  moral.  The  masters  of  mundane  ethics 
observe  that  "  you  should  stay  in  the  world,  or  stay  out  of 
the  world".  Lady  Mary  did  neither.  She  went  out  and 
tried  to  return.  Horace  Walpole  thus  describes  the  result : 
"  Lady  Mary  Wortley  is  arrived  ;  I  have  seen  her;  I  think 
her  avarice,  her  art,  and  her  vivacity  are  all  increased.  Her 
dress,  like  her  language,  is  a  galimatias  of  several  countries; 
the  groundwork  rags,  and  the  embroidery  nastiness.  She 
needs  no  cap,  no  handkerchief,  no  gown,  no  petticoat,  and 
no  shoes.  An  old  black  laced  hood  represents  the  first ;  the 
fur  of  a  horseman's  coat,  which  replaces  the  third,  serves  for 
the  second  ;  a  dimity  petticoat  is  deputy  and  officiates  for 
the  fourth ;  and  slippers  act  the  part  of  the  last.  When  I 
was  at  Florence,  and  she  was  expected  there,  we  were 
drawing  sortes  Virgilianas  for  her ;  we  literally  drew 

'  Insanam  vatem  aspicies  '.  1 
1  JEneid,  iii.,  443. 


256  Literary  Studies. 

It  would  have  been  a  stranger  prophecy  now  even  than  it 
was  then."  There  is  a  description  of  what  the  favourite  of 
society  becomes  after  leaving  it  for  years,  and  after  in- 
dulging eccentricities  for  years  !  There  is  a  commentary 
on  the  blunder  of  exposing  yourself  in  your  old  age  to 
young  people,  to  whom  you  have  always  been  a  tradition 
and  a  name !  Horace  Walpole  doubtless  painted  up  a  few 
trivialities  a  little.  But  one  of  the  traits  is  true.  Lady 
Mary  lived  before  the  age  in  which  people  waste  half  their 
lives  in  washing  the  whole  of  their  persons. 

Lady  Mary  did  not  live  long  after  her  return  to  England. 
Horace  Walpole's  letter  is  written  on  the  2nd  February, 
1762,  and  she  died  on  the  2ist  August  in  the  same  year. 
Her  husband  had  died  just  before  her  return,  and  perhaps, 
after  so  many  years,  she  would  not  have  returned  unless 
he  had  done  so.  Requiescat  in  pace;  for  she  quarrelled 
all  her  life. 


257 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.1 

(1862.) 

No  one  can  be  more  rigid  than  we  are  in  our  rules2  as  to  the 
publication  of  remains  and  memoirs.      It  is  very  natural 
that  the  friends  of  a  cultivated  man  who  seemed  about  to 
do  something,  but  who  died  before  he  did  it,  should  desire 
to  publish  to  the  world  the  grounds  of  their  faith,  and  the 
little  symptoms  of  his  immature  excellence.      But  though 
they  act   very  naturally,  they  act  very  unwisely.     In  the 
present  state  of  the  world  there  are  too  many  half-excellent 
people :  there  is  a  superfluity  of  persons  who  have  all  the 
knowledge,  all  the  culture,  all  the  requisite  taste, — all  t 
tools,  in  short,  of  achievement,  but  who  are  deficient  in  t 
latent  impulse  and  secret  vigour  which  alone  can  turn  su 
instruments  to  account.     They  have  all  the  outward  ar|d 
visible   signs  of  future   success ;    they   want   the  invisib 
spirit,  which  can  only  be  demonstrated  by  trial  and  victor 
Nothing,  therefore,  is  more  tedious  or  more  worthless  th 
the  posthumous  delineation  of  the  possible  successes  of  on 
who  did  not  succeed.     The  dreadful  remains  of  nice  young 
persons  which  abound  among  us  prove  almost  nothing  as 
to  the  future  fate  of  those  persons,  if  they  had  survived. 
We  can  only  tell  that  any  one  is  a  man  of  genius  by  his 
having  produced  some  work  of  genius.     Young  men  must 

1  Poems.    By  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  sometime  Fellow  of  Oriel  College, 
Oxford.     With  a  Memoir.     Macmillan. 

2  This  essay  was  originally  published  in  The  National  Review. 

VOL.    II.    "  I? 


258  Literary  Studies. 


practise  themselves  in  youthful  essays ;  and  to  some  of  their 
friends  these  may  seem  works  not  only  of  fair  promise,  but 
of  achieved  excellence.  The  cold  world  of  critics  and  readers 
will  not,  however,  think  so ;  thar*world  well  understands 
the  distinction  between  promise  and  performance,  and  sees 
that  these  laudable  juvenilia  differ  from  good  books  as  much 
as  legitimate  bills  of  exchange  differ  from  actual  cash. 

If  we  did  not  believe  that  Mr.  Clough's  poems,  or  at 
least  several  of  them,  had  real  merit,  not  as  promissory 
germs,  but  as  completed  performances,  it  would  not  seem 
to   us  to  be  within  our  province  to  notice  them.     Nor,  if 
Ir.  Clough  were  now  living  among  us,  would  he  wish  us 
do  so.    The  marked  peculiarity,  and,  so  to  say,  the  flavour 
f  his  mind,  was  a  sort  of  truthful  scepticism,  which  made 
im  anxious  never  to  overstate  his  own  assurance  of  any- 
ling ;  which  disinclined  him  to  overrate  the  doings  of  his 
iends ;  and  which  absolutely  compelled  him  to  underrate 
is  own  past  writings,  as  well  as  his  capability  for  future 
literary  success.    He  could  not  have  borne  to  have  his  poems 
reviewed  with  "  nice   remarks "    and    sentimental   epithets 
of  insincere  praise.     He  was  equal  to  his  precept : — 

"  Where  are  the  great,  whom  thou  wouldst  wish  to  praise  thee  ? 
Where  are  the  pure,  whom  thou  wouldst  choose  to  love  thee  ? 
Where  are  the  brave,  to  stand  supreme  above  thee, 
Whose  high  commands  would  cheer,  whose  chiding  raise  thee  ? 
Seek,  seeker,  in  thyself;  submit  to  find 
In  the  stones,  bread,  and  life  in  the  blank  mind." 

To   offer   petty  praise  and  posthumous  compliments  to  a 

stoic  of  this   temper,  is  like  buying   sugar-plums   for   St. 

Simon  Stylites.  We  venture  to  write  an  article  on  Mr. 
Mough,  because  we  believe  that  his  poems  depict  an  intellect 
a  state  which  is  always  natural  "  to  such  a  being  as  man 
such  a  world  as  the  present,"  which  is  peculiarly  natural 

t<i  us  just  now ;  and  because  we  believe  that  many  of  these 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  259 

poems  are  very  remarkable  for  true  vigour  and  artistic 
excellence,  although  they  certainly  have  defects  and  short- 
comings, which  would  have  been  lessened,  if  not  removed, 
if  their  author  had  lived  longer  and  had  written  more. 

In  a  certain  sense  there  are  two  great  opinions  about 
everything.  There  are  two  about  the  universe  itself.  The 
world  as  we  know  it  is  this.  There  is  a  vast,  visible, 
indisputable  sphere,  of  which  we  never  lose  the  conscious- 
ness, of  which  no  one  seriously  denies  the  existence,  about 
the  most  important  part  of  which  most  people  agree  tolerably 
and  fairly.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  invisible 
world,  about  which  men  are  not  agreed  at  all,  which  all 
but  the  faintest  minority  admit  to  exist  somehow  ana 
somewhere,  but  as  to  the  nature  or  locality  of  which  there 
is  no  efficient  popular  demonstration,  no  such  compulsory 
argument  as  will  force  the  unwilling  conviction  of  any  one 
disposed  to  denial.  As  our  minds  rise,  as  our  knowledge 
enlarges,  as  our  wisdom  grows,  as  our  instincts  deepen,  onr 
conviction  of  this  invisible  world  is  daily  strengthened,  and 
our  estimate  of  its  nature  is  continually  improved.  But — 
and  this  is  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  whole  subject 
— the  more  we  improve,  the  higher  we  rise,  tne  nobler  we 
conceive  the  unseen  world  which  "TsTin  uy  aird  about  us, 
in  which  we  live  and  move,  the  jnore  unlike  that  world 
becomes  to  the  world  which  we  do  see.  The  divinities  oi 
Olympus  were  in  a  very  plain  and  intelligible  sense  part 
and  parcel  of  this  earth ;  they  were  better  specimens  than 
could  be  found  below,  but  they  belonged  to  extant  species ; 
they  were  better  editions  of  visible  existences ;  they  were 
like  the  heroines  whom  young  men  imagine  after  seeing 
the  young  ladies  of  their  vicinity — they  were  better  and 
handsomer,  but  they  were  of  the  same  sort ;  they  had  never 
been  seen,  but  they  might  have  been  seen  any  day.  So 
too  of  the  God  with  whom  the  Patriarch  wrestled :  he 


260  Literary  Studies. 


might  have  been  wrestled  with  even  if  he  was  not ;  he  was 
that  sort  of  person.     If  we  contrast  with  these  the  God  of 
whom  Christ  speaks — the  God  who  has  not  been  seen  at 
any   time,  whom   no  man   hath  seen  or  can  see,  who  is 
infinite  in  nature,  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out — the 
transition  is  palpable.     We  have  passed  from  gods — from 
an  invisible  world,  which  is  similar  to,  which  is  a  natural 
appendix   to,  the  world   in   which  we  live — and  we   have 
_ome  to  believe  in  an  invisible  world,  which  is  altogether 
unlike  that  which  we  see,  which  is  certainly  not  opposed 
o  our  experience,  but  is  altogether  beyond  and  unlike  our 
ixperience ;    which    belongs   to   another   set   of  things   al- 
ogether;    which    is,    as    we    speak,    transcendental.      The 
'  pb>oibltr><^  of  early  barbarism  is    like  the  reality  of  early 
barbarism;    the   "may   be,"  the   "great  perhaps,"  of  late 
civilisation   is   most  unlike  the  earth,  whether  barbaric  or 
civilised. 

Two  opinions  as  to  the  universe  naturally  result  from 
this  fundamental  contrast.  There  are  plenty  of  minds,  like 
that  of  Voltaire,  who  have  simply  no  sense  or  perception 
of  the  invisible  world  whatever,  who  have  no  ear  for 
religion,  who  are  in  the  technical  sense  unconverted,  whom 
no  conceivable  process  could  convert  without  altering  what 
to  bystanders  and  ordinary  observers  is  their  identity. 
They  are,  as  a  rule,  acute,  sensible,  discerning,  and 
A  humane;  but  the  first  observation  which  the  most  ordinary 
/  vperson  would  make  as  to  them  is,  that  they  are  "  limited  "  ; 
they  understand  palpable  existence ;  they  elaborate  it,  and 
beautify  and  improve  it ;  but  an  admiring  bystander,  who 
can  do  none  of  these  things,  who  can  beautify  nothing,  who, 
if  he  tried,  would  only  make  what  is  ugly  uglier,  is  con- 
scious of  a  latent  superiority,  which  he  can  hardly  help 
connecting  with  his  apparent  inferiority.  We  cannot  write 
Voltaire's  sentences ;  we  cannot  make  things  as  clear  as 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  261 

he  made  them  ;  but  we  do  not  much  care  for  our  deficiency. 
Perhaps  we  think  "  things  ought  not  to  be  so  plain  as  all 
that".  There  is  a  hidden,  secret,  unknown  side  to  this 
universe,  which  these  picturesque  painters  of  the  visible 
these  many-handed  manipulators  of  the  palpable,  are  not 
aware  of,  which  would  spoil  their  dexterity  if  it  were  dis- 
played on  them.  Sleep-walkers  can  tread  safely  on  the 
very  edge  of  a  precipice  ;  but  those  who  see,  cannot.  Or 
the  other  hand,  there  are  those  whose  minds  have  not  only 
been  converted,  but  in  some  sense  inverted.  They  are  so 
occupied  with  the  invisible  world  as  to  be  absorbed  in  it 
entirely ;  they  have  no  true  conception  of  that  which  stands 
plainly  before  them ;  they  never  look  coolly  at  it,  and  areA 
cross  with  those  who  do ;  they  are  wrapt  up  in  their  own 
faith  as  to  an  unseen  existence ;  they  rush  upon  mankind" 
with  "Ah,  there  it  is !  there  it  is  ! — don't  you  see  it  ?  "  and* 
so  incur  the  ridicule  of  an  age. 

The  best  of  us  try  to  avoid  both  fates.  We  strive,  more 
or  less,  to  "  make  thebejjt-of^both  worlds  ".  We  know  that 
the  invisible  world  cannot  be  duly  discerned,  or  perfectly 
appreciated.  We  know  that  we  see  as  in  a  glass  darkly  ; 
but  still  we  look  on  the  glass.  We  frame  to  ourselves 
some  image  which  we  know  to  be  incomplete,  which  pro 
bably  is  in  part  untrue,  which  we  try  to  improve  day  bj 
day,  of  which  we  do  not  deny  the  defects, — but  which  never 
theless  is  our  "  all " ;  which  we  hope,  when  the  account; 
are  taken,  may  be  found  not  utterly  unlike  the  unknowr 
reality.  This  is,  as  it  seems,  the  best  religion  for  finit< 
beings,  living,  if  we  may  say  so,  on  the  very  edge  of  two 
dissimilar  worlds,  on  the  very  line  on  which  the  infinite, 
unfathomable  sea  surges  up,  and  just  where  the  queer  little 
bay  of  this  world  ends.  We  count  the  pebbles  on  the  shore, 
and  image  to  ourselves  as  best  we  may  the  secrets  of  the 
great  deep. 


262  Literary  Studies. 


There  are,  however,  some  minds  (and  of  these  Mr. 
dough's  was  one)  which  will  not  accept  what  appears  to  be 
an  intellectual  destiny.  They  struggle  against  the  limita- 
tions of  mortality,  and  will  not  condescend  to  use  the  natural 
land  needful  aids  of  human  thought.  They  will  not  make 


\thpiv-4tnage.      They  struggle  after ^an    "actual  abstract". 
They  feel,  and  they  rightly^-feel,  that  every  image,  every 
translation,  every  mode  of  conception  by  which  the  human 
mind  tries  to  place  before  itself  the  Divine  mind,  is  imperfect, 
halting,  changing.     They  feel,  from  their  own  experience, 
that  there  is  no  one  such  mode  of  representation  which  will 
suit  their  own  minds  at   all  times,  and   they  smile  with 
bitterness  at  the  notion  that  they  could  contrive  an  image 
which  will  suit  all  other  minds.     They  could  not  become 
fanatics  or  missionaries,  or  even  common  preachers,  without 
forfeiting  their   natural  dignity,   and   foregoing  their  very 
essence.     To  cry  in  the  streets,  to  uplift  their  voice  in  Israel, 
to  be  "  pained  with  hot  thoughts,"  to  be  "  preachers  of  a 
dream,"  would  reverse  their  whole  cast  of  mind.     It  would 
i  Metamorphose    them    into   something  which    omits   every 
5  triking  trait  for  which  they  were  remarked,  and  which  con- 
tains every  trait  for  which  they  were  not  remarked.     On  the 
other  hand,  it  would  be  quite  as  opposite  to  their  whole 
nature  to  become  followers  of  Voltaire.     No  one  knows  more 
certainly  and  feels  more  surely  that  there  is  an  invisible 
world,  than  those  very  persons  who  decline  to  make  an 
yimage  or  representation  of  it,  who  shrink  with  a  nervous 
norror  from  every  such  attempt  when  it  is  made  by  any 
ethers.     All  this  inevitably  leads  to  what  common,  practical 
people  term  a  "  curious  "  sort  of  mind.     You  do  not  know 
how  to  describe  these  "  universal  negatives."  as  they  seem 
to  be.     They  will  not  fall  into  place  in  the  ordinary  intellec- 
tual world  anyhow.     If  you  offer  them  any  known  religion, 
they  "won't  have  that"  ;  if  you  offer  them  no  religion,  they 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  263 

will  not  have  that  either ;  if  you  ask  them  to  accept  a  new 
and  as  yet  unrecognised  religion,  they  altogether  refuse  to  A 
do  so.     They  seem  not  only  to  believe  in  an   "unknown 
God,"  but  in  a  God  whom  no  man  can  ever  know.     Mr.  I 
Clough  has  expressed,  in  a  sort  of  lyric,  what  may  be  called 
their  essential  religion  : — 

"  O  Thou  whose  image  in  the  shrine 
Of  human  spirits  dwells  divine ! 
Which  from  that  precinct  once  conveyed, 
To  be  to  outer  day  displayed, 
Doth  vanish,  part,  and  leave  behind 
Mere  blank  and  void  of  empty  mind, 
Which  wilful  fancy  seeks  in  vain 
With  casual  shapes  to  fill  again ' 

"  O  Thou,  that  in  our  bosom's  shrine 
Dost  dwell,  unknown  because  divine ! 
I  thought  to  speak,  I  thought  to  say, 
1  The  light  is  here,'  '  Behold  the  way,' 
'  The  voice  was  thus,'  and  '  Thus  the  word,' 
And  '  Thus  I  saw,'  and  '  That  I  heard,' — 
But  from  the  lips  that  half  essayed 
The  imperfect  utterance  fell  unmade. 

"  O  Thou,  in  that  mysterious  shrine 

Enthroned,  as  I  may  say,  divine  ! 

I  will  not  frame  one  thought  of  what 

Thou  mayest  either  be  or  not. 

I  will  not  prate  of '  thus '  and  '  so,' 
(And  be  profane  with  '  yes '  or  '  no,' 

Enough  that  in  our  soul  and  heart 
vThou,  whatso'er  Thou  mayest  be,  art." 

It  was  exceedingly  natural  that  Mr.  Clough  should  incline 
to  some  such  creed  as  this,  with  his  character  and  in  his 
circumstances.  He  had  by  nature,  probably,  an  exceedingly 
real  mind,  in  the  good  sense  of  that  expression  and  the  bad 
sense.  The  actual  visible  world  as  it  was,  and  as  he  saw 


264  Literary  Studies. 


it,  exercised  over  him  a  compulsory  influence.  The  hills 
among  which  he  had  wandered,  the  cities  he  had  visited, 
the  friends  whom  he  knew, — these  were  his  world.  Many 
minds  of  the  poetic  sort  easily  melt  down  these  palpable 
facts  into  some  impalpable  ether  of  their  own.  To  such  a 
mind  as  Shelley's  the  "  solid  earth  "  is  an  immaterial  fact ; 
it  is  not  even  a  cumbersome  difficulty — it  is  a  preposterous 
imposture.  Whatever  may  exist,  all  that  clay  does  not 
exist ;  it  would  be  too  absurd  to  think  so.  Common 
persons  can  make  nothing  of  this  dreaminess  ;  and  Mr. 
Clough,  though  superficial  observers  set  him  down  as  a 
dreamer,  could  not  make  much  either.  To  him,  as  to  the 
mass  of  men,  the  vulgar,  outward  world  was  a  primitive 
fact.  "  Taxes  is  true,"  as  the  miser  said.  Reconcile 
what  you  have  to  say  with  green  peas,  for  green  peas 
are  certain  ;  such  was  Mr.  Clough's  idea.  He  could  not 
dissolve  the  world  into  credible  ideas  and  then  believe 
those  ideas,  as  many  poets  have  done.  He  could  not  catch 
up  a  creed  as  ordinary  men  do.  He  had  a  straining,  in- 
[uisitive,  critical  mind  ;  he  scrutinised  every  idea  before  he 
ook  it  in  ;  he  did  not  allow  the  moral  forces  of  life  to  act 
is  they  should  ;  he  was  not  content  to  gain  a  belief  "  by 
joing  on  living  ".  He  said, 

"Action  will  furnish  belief;  but  will  that  belief  be  the  true  one  ? 
This  is  the  point,  you  know." 

He  felt  the  coarse  facts  of  the  plain  world  so  thoroughly 
that  he  could  not  readily  take  in  anything  which  did  not 
seem  in  accordance  with  them  and  like  them.  And  what 
common  idea  of  the  invisible  world  seems  in  the  least  in 
accordance  with  them  or  like  them  ? 

A  journal-writer   in   one   of  his   poems   has   expressed 
this : — 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  265 

"  Comfort  has  come  to  me  here  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city, 
Comfort — how  do  you  think  ? — with  a  barrel-organ  to  bring  it. 
Moping  along  the  streets,  and  cursing  my  day  as  I  wandered, 
All  of  a  sudden  my  ear  met  the  sound  of  an  English  psalm-tune. 
Comfort  me  it  did,  till  indeed  I  was  very  near  crying. 
Ah,  there  is  some  great  truth,  partial  very  likely,  but  needfui, 
Lodged,  I  am  strangely  sure,  in  the  tones  of  the  English  psalm-tune : 
Comfort  it  was  at  least ;  and  I  must  take  without  question 
Comfort,  however  it  come,  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city. 

"  What  with  trusting  myself,  and  seeking  support  from  within  me, 
Almost  I  could  believe  I  had  gained  a  religious  assurance, 
Formed  in  my  own  poor  soul  a  great  moral  basis  to  rest  on. 
Ah,  but  indeed  I  see,  I  feel  it  factitious  entirely ; 
I  refuse,  reject,  and  put  it  utterly  from  me  ; 
I  will  look  straight  out,  see  things,  not  try  to  evade  them  ; 
Fact  shall  be  fact  for  me,  and  the  Truth  the  Truth  as  ever, 
Flexible,  changeable,  vague,  and  multiform,  and  doubtful. — 
Off,  and  depart  to  the  void,  thou  subtle,  fanatical  tempter  !  "  1 

Mr.  dough's  fate  in  life  had  been  such  as  to  exaggerate 
this  naturally  peculiar  temper.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Arnold's; 
one  of  his  best,  most  susceptible  and  favourite  pupils. 
Some  years  since  there  was  much  doubt  and  interest  as  to 
the  effect  of  Arnold's  teaching.  His  sudden  death,  so  to 
say,  cut  his  life  in  the  middle,  and  opened  a  tempting  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  effect  of  his  teaching  when  those  taught 
by  him  should  have  become  men  and  not  boys.  The 
interest  which  his  own  character  then  awakened,  and  must 
always  awaken,  stimulated  the  discussion,  and  there  was 
much  doubt  about  it.  But  now  we  need  doubt  no  longer. 
The  Rugby  "men "are  real  men,  and  the  world  can  pro- 
nounce its  judgment.  Perhaps  that  part  of  the  world  which 
cares  for  such  things  has  pronounced  it.  Dr.  Arnold  was 
almost  indisputably  an  admirable  master  for  a  common 
English  boy, — the  small,  apple-eating  animal  whom  we 

1  "  Amours  de  Voyage,"  v.  2. 


266  Literary  Studies. 


know.  He  worked,  he  pounded,  if  the  phrase  may  be  used, 
into  the  boy  a  belief,  or  at  any  rate  a  floating,  confused 
conception,  that  there  are  great  subjects,  that  there  are 
strange  problems,  that  knowledge  has  an  indefinite  value, 
that  life  is  a  serious  and  solemn  thing.  The  influence  of 
Arnold's  teaching  upon  the  majority  of  his  pupils  was 
probably  very  vague,  but  very  good.  To  impress  on  the 
ordinary  Englishman  a  general  notion  of  the  importance 
<if  what  is  intellectual  and  the  reality  of  what  is  supernatural, 
is  the  greatest  benefit  which  can  be  conferred  upon  him. 
iThe  common  English  mind  is  too  coarse,  sluggish,  and 
worldly  to  take  such  lessons  too  much  to  heart.  It  is  im- 
proved by  them  in  many  ways,  and  is  not  harmed  by  them 
at  all.  But  there  are  a  few  minds  which  are  very  likely  to 
think  too  much  of  such  things.  A  susceptible,  serious, 
intellectual  boy  may  be  injured  by  the  incessant  inculcation 
/of  the  awfulness  of  life  and  the  magnitude  of  great  problems. 
It  isnot  desirable  to  take  this  world  too  much  au  serieux; 
most  persons  will  not ;  and  the  one  in  a  thousand  who  will, 
should  not.  Mr.  Clough  was  one  of  those  who  will.  He 
was  one  of  ArnolcHs  favourite  pupils,  because  he  gave  heed 
so  much  to  Arnold's  teaching ;  and  exactly  because  he  gave 
heed  to  it,  was  it  bad  for  him.  He  required  quite  another 
sort  of  teaching :  to  be  told  to  take  things  easily ;  not  to 
try  to  be  wise  nvprmnrh  ;  tr>  HP  "  snrnethinfr  beside  critical " ; 
to  go  on  living  quietly  and  obviously,  and  see  what  truth 
would  come  to  him.  Mr.  Clough  had  to  his  latest  years 
what  may  be  noticed  in  others  of  Arnold's  disciples, — a 
fatigued  way  of  looking  at  great  subjects.  It  seemed  as  if 
r\e  had  been  put  into  them  before  his  time,  had  seen  through 
tnem,  heard  all  which  could  be  said  about  them,  had  been 
bored  by  them,  and  had  come  to  want  something  else. 

A  still  worse  consequence  was,  that  the  faith,  the  doc- 
trinal teaching  which  Arnold  impressed  on  the  youths  about 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  267 

him,  was  one  personal  to  Arnold  himself,  which  arose  out 
of  the  peculiarities  of  his  own  character,  which  can  only  be 
explained  by  them.  As  soon  as  an  inquisitive  mind  wa: 
thrown  into  a  new  intellectual  atmosphere,  and  was  obligee 
to  naturalise  itself  in  it,  to  consider  the  creed  it  had  learnec 
with  reference  to  the  facts  which  it  encountered  and  met 
much  of  that  creed  must  fade  away.  There  were  inevitable 
difficulties  in  it,  which  only  the  personal  peculiarities  of 
Arnold  prevented  his  perceiving,  and  which  every  one  else 
must  soon  perceive.  The  new  intellectual  atmosphere  into 
which  Mr.  Clough  was  thrown  was  peculiarly  likely  to  have 
this  disenchanting  effect.  It  was  the  Oxford  of  Father 
Newman ;  an  Oxford  utterly  different  from  Oxford  as  it  is, 
or  from  the  same  place  as  it  had  been  twenty  years  before. 
A  complete  estimate  of  that  remarkable  thinker  cannot  be 
given  here  ;  it  would  be  no  easy  task  even  now,  many  years 
after  his  influence  has  declined,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  the 
present  purpose.  Two  points  are  quite  certain  of  Father 
Newman,  and  they  are  the  only  two  which  are  at  present 
material.  He  was  undeniably  a  consummate  master  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  creeds  of  other  men.  With  a  profoundly 
religious  organisation  which  was  hard  to  satisfy,  with  an 
imagination  which  could  not  help  setting  before  itself  simply 
and  exactly  what  different  creeds  would  come  to  and  mean 
in  life,  with  an  analysing  and  most  subtle  intellect  which 
was  sure  to  detect  the  weak  point  in  an  argument  if  a  weak 
point  there  was,  with  a  manner  at  once  grave  and  fasci- 
nating,— he  was  a  nearly  perfect  religious  disputant,  whatever 
may  be  his  deficiencies  as  a  religious  teacher.  The  most 
accomplished  theologian  of  another  faith  would  have  looked 
anxiously  to  the  joints  of  his  harness  before  entering  the 
lists  with  an  adversary  so  prompt  and  keen.  To  suppose 
that  a  youth  fresh  from  Arnold's  teaching,  with  a  hasty 
faith  in  a  scheme  of  thought  radically  inconsistent,  should  be 


268  Literary  Studies. 


able  to  endure  such  an  encounter,  was  absurd.  Arnold  flattered 

himself  that  he  was  a  principal  opponent  of  Mr.  Newman  ;  but 

he  was  rather  a  principal  fellow-labourer.    There  was  but  one 

quality  in  a  common  English  boy  which  would  have  enabled 

rim  to  resist  such  a  reasoner  as  Mr.  Newman.     We  have  a 

icavy  apathy  on  exciting  topics,  which  enables  us  to  leave 

lilemmas  unsolved,  to  forget  difficulties,  to  go  about  our 

Measure  or  our  business,  and  to  leave  the  reasoner  to  pursue 

lis  logic :  "  anyhow  he  is  very  long  " — that  we  comprehend. 

But  it  was  exactly  this  happy  apathy,   this  commonplace 

indifference,  that  Arnold  prided  himself  on  removing.      He 

[[objected  strenuously  to  Mr.  Newman's  creed,  but  he  prepared 

"anxiously  the  very  soil  in  which  that  creed  was  sure  to  grow. 

k.  multitude  of  such  minds  as  Mr.   dough's,  from   being 

lArnolditps,  became  Newmanites. 

^T"second  quality  in  Mr.  Newman  is  at  least  equally  clear. 
He  was  much  better  skilled  in  finding  out  the  difficulties  of 
other  men's  creeds  than  in  discovering  and  stating  a  distinct 
basis  for  his  own.  In  most  of  his  characteristic  works  he 
does  not  even  attempt  it.  His  argument  is  essentially  an 
argument  ad  hominem;  an  argument  addressed  to  the 
\present  creed  of  the  person  with  whom  he  is  reasoning.  He 
Isays :  "  Give  up  what  you  hold  already,  or  accept  what  I 
<npw  say;  for  that  which  you  already  hold  involves  it". 
EveTTin  books  where  he  is  especially  called  on  to  deal  with 
matters  of  first  principle,  the  result  is  unsatisfactory.  We 
have  heard  it  said  that  he  has  in  later  life  accounted  for  the 
argumentative  vehemence  of  his  book  against  the  Church  of 
Rome  by  saying :  "  I  did  it  as  a  duty  ;  I  put  myself  into  a 
state  of  mind  to  write  that  book".  And  this  is  just  the  im- 
pression  which  his  arguments  give.  His  elementary  princi- 
seem  made,  not  born.  Very  likely  he  would  admit  the 
fact,  yet  defend  his  practice.  He  would  say:  "  Such  a  being 
as  man  is,  in  such  a  world  as  this  is,  must  do  so ;  he  must 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  269 

make  a  venture  for  his  religion  ;  he  may  see  a  greater  pro- 
bability that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  is  true  than  that  it 
is  false ;  he  may  see  before  he  believes  in  her  that  she  has 
greater  evidence  than  any  other  creed  ;  but  he  must  do 
rest  for  himself.  By  means  of  his  will  he  must  put  himsel: 
into  a  new  state  of  mind ;  he  must  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
Church  here  and  hereafter  ;  then  his  belief  will  gradually 
strengthen  ;  he  will  in  time  become  sure  of  what  she  says.'^ 
He  undoubtedly,  in  the  time  of  his  power,  persuaded  many 
young  men  to  try  some  such  process  as  this.  The  weaker, 
the  more  credulous,  and  the  more  fervent,  were  able  to 
persevere ;  those  who  had  not  distinct  perceptions  of  real 
truth,  who  were  dreamy  and  fanciful  by  nature,  persevered 
without  difficulty.  But  Mr.  Clough  could  not  do  so;  he  filt 
it  was  "  something  factitious  ". *  He  began  to  speak  of  tHe 
"ruinous  force  of  the  will,"2  and  "our  terrible  notions  of 
duty".3  He  ceased  to  be  a  Newmanite. 

Thus  Mr.  Clough's  career  and  life  were  exactly  those 
most  likely  to  develop  and  foster  a  morbid  peculiarity  of  his 
intellect.     He  had,  as  we  have  explained,  by  nature  an  un- 
usual difficulty  in  forming  a  creed  as  to  the  unseen  world ; 
he  could  not  get  the  visible  world  out  of  his  head;  his  strong 
grasp  of  plain  facts  and  obvious  matters  was  a  difficulty  to 
him.     Too  easily  one  great  teacher  inculcated  a  remarkable 
creed ;  then  another  great  teacher  took  it  away ;  then  this 
second  teacher  made  him  believe  for  a  time  some  of  his  owi 
artificial  faith  ;  then  it  would  not  do.     He  fell  back  on  tha 
vague,    impalpable,    unembodied   religion   which   we    havi 
attempted  to  describe. 

He  has  himself  given  in  a  poem,4  now  first  published,  a 

very  remarkable  description  of  this  curious  state  of  mind. 

He  has  prefixed  to  it  the  characteristic  motto,  "  //  doutait 

de  tout,  meme  de  V  amour".     It  is  the  delineation  of  a  certain 

i "  Amours  de  Voyage."  -Ibid.  *Ibid. 


27  o  Literary  Studies. 


love-passage  in  the  life  of  a  hesitating  young  gentleman, 
who  was  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  of  1848; 
who  could  not  make  up  his  mind  about  the  revolution,  who 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  liked  Rome,  who 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  liked  the  young  lady, 
who  let  her  go  away  without  him,  who  went  in  pursuit  of 
her,  and  could  not  make  out  which  way  to  look  for  her, — 
who,  in  fine,  has  some  sort  of  religion,  but  cannot  himself 
tell  what  it  is.  The  poem  was  not  published  in  the  author's 
lifetime,  and  there  are  some  lines  which  we  are  persuaded 
he  would  have  further  polished,  and  some  parts  which  he 
would  have  improved,  if  he  had  seen  them  in  print.  It  is 
written  in  conversational  hexameters,  in  a  tone  of  semi- 
satire  and  half-belief.  Part  of  the  commencement  is  a  good 
example  of  them  : — 

"  Rome  disappoints  me  much  ;  I  hardly  as  yet  understand,  but 
Rubbishy  seems  the  word  that  most  exactly  would  suit  it. 
All  the  foolish  destructions,  and  all  the  sillier  savings, 
All  the  incongruous  things  of  past  incompatible  ages, 
Seem  to  be  treasured  up  here  to  make  fools  of  present  and  future. 
Would  to  heaven  the  old  Goths  had  made  a  cleaner  sweep  of  it ! 
Would  to  heaven   some   new   ones  would   come   and  destroy  these 

churches ! 

However,  one  can  live  in  Rome  as  also  in  London. 
Rome  is  better  than  London,  because  it  is  other  than  London. 
It  is  a  blessing,  no  doubt,  to  be  rid,  at  least  for  a  time,  of 
All  one's  friends  and  relations, — yourself  (forgive  me  1)  included, — 
All  the  assujettissemcnt  of  having  been  what  one  has  been, 
What  one  thinks  one  is,  or  thinks  that  others  suppose  one ; 
Yet,  in  despite  of  all,  we  turn  like  fools  to  the  English. 
Vernon  has  been  my  fate ;  who  is  here  the  same  that  you  knew  him, — 
Making  the  tour,  it  seems,  with  friends  of  the  name  of  Trevellyn. 

"  Rome  disappoints  me  still ;  but  I  shrink  and  adapt  myself  to  it. 
Somehow  a  tyrannous  sense  of  a  superincumbent  oppression 
Still,  wherever  I  go,  accompanies  ever,  and  makes  me 
Feel  like  a  tree  (shall  I  say?)  buried  under  a  ruin  of  brickwork. 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  271 

Rome,  believe  me,  my  friend,  is  like  its  own  Monte  Testaceo, 
Merely  a  marvellous  mass  of  broken  and  castaway  wine-pots. 
Ye  Gods !  what  do  I  want  with  this  rubbish  of  ages  departed, 
Things  that  Nature  abhors,  the  experiments  that  she  has  failed  in  ? 
What  do  I  find  in  the  Forum  ?     An  archway  and  two  or  three  pillars. 
Well,  but  St.  Peter's  ?     Alas,  Bernini  has  filled  it  with  sculpture ! 
No  one  can  cavil,  I  grant,  at  the  size  of  the  great  Coliseum. 
Doubtless  the  notion  of  grand  and  capacious  and  massive  amusement, 
This  the  old  Romans  had  ;  but  tell  me,  is  this  an  idea  ? 
Yet  of  solidity  much,  but  of  splendour  little  is  extant : 
'  Brickwork  I   found   thee,  and   marble  I   left  thee ! '    their  Emperor 

vaunted ; 
'  Marble  I  thought  thee,  and  brickwork  I  find  thee ! '  the  Tourist  may 

answer." 

As  he  goes  on  he  likes  Rome  rather  better,  but  hazards  the 
following  imprecation  on  the  Jesuits  : — 

"  Luther,  they  say,  was  unwise ;  he  didn't  see  how  things  were  going ; 
Luther  was  foolish, — but,  O  great  God  !  what  call  you  Ignatius  ? 
O  my  tolerant  soul,  be  still !  but  you  talk  of  barbarians, 
Alaric,  Attila,  Genseric ; — why,  they  came,  they  killed,  they 
Ravaged,  and  went  on  their  way ;  but  these  vile,  tyrannous  Spaniards, 
These  are  here  still, — how  long,  O  ye  heavens,  in  the  country  of  Dante  ? 
These,  that  fanaticised  Europe,  which  now  can  forget  them,  release  not 
This,  their  choicest  of  prey,  this  Italy ;  here  you  see  them, — 
Here,  with  emasculate  pupils  and  gimcrack  churches  of  Gesu, 
Pseudo-learning  and  lies,  confessional-boxes  and  postures, — 
Here,  with  metallic  beliefs  and  regimental  devotions, — 
Here,  overcrusting  with  slime,  perverting,  defacing,  debasing 
Michael  Angelo's  dome,  that  had  hung  the  Pantheon  in  heaven, 
Raphael's  Joys  and  Graces,  and  thy  clear  stars,  Galileo  !  " 

The  plot  of  the  poem  is  very  simple,  and  certainly  is  not 
very  exciting.  The  moving  force,  as  in  most  novels  of  verse 
or  prose,  is  the  love  of  the  hero  for  the  heroine  ;  but  this 
love  assuredly  is  not  of  a  very  impetuous  and  overpowering 
character.  The  interest  of  this  story  is  precisely  that  it  is 
not  overpowering.  The  over-intellectual  hero,  over-anxious 
to  be  composed,  will  not  submit  himself  tP  hi§  love  ;  over- 


272  Literary  Studies. 


fearful  of  what  is  voluntary  and  factitious,  he  will  not  make 
an  effort  and  cast  in  his  lot  with  it.  He  states  his  view  of 
the  subject  better  than  we  can  state  it : — 

"  I  am  in  love,  meantime,  you  think  ;  no  doubt  you  would  think  so. 
I  am  in  love,  you  say,  with  those  letters,  of  course,  you  would  say  so. 
I  am  in  love,  you  declare.     I  think  not  so  ;  yet  I  grant  you 
It  is  a  pleasure  indeed  to  converse  with  this  girl.     Oh,  rare  gift, 
Rare  felicity,  this !  she  can  talk  in  a  rational  way,  can 
Speak  upon  subjects  that  really  are  matters  of  mind  and  of  thinking, 
Yet  in  perfection  retain  her  simplicity  ;  never,  one  moment, 
Never,  however  you  urge  it,  however  you  tempt  her,  consents  to 
Step  from  ideas  and  fancies  and  loving  sensations  to  those  vain 
Conscious  understandings  that  vex  the  minds  of  mankind. 
No,  though  she  talk,  it  is  music ;  her  fingers  desert  not  the  keys ;  'tis 
Song,  though  you  hear  in  the  song  the  articulate  vocables  sounded, 
Syllables  singly  and  sweetly  the  words  of  melodious  meaning. 

I  am  in  love,  you  say ;  I  do  not  think  so,  exactly. 
There  are  two  different  kinds,  I  believe,  of  human  attraction : 
One  which  simply  disturbs,  unsettles,  and  makes  you  uneasy, 
And  another  that  poises,  retains,  and  fixes  and  holds  you. 
I  have  no  doubt,  for  myself,  in  giving  my  voice  for  the  latter. 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  moved,  but  growing  where  I  was  growing, 
There  more  truly  to  grow,  to  live  where  as  yet  I  had  languished. 
]  do  not  like  being  moved  :  for  the  will  is  excited  ;  and  action 
]  s  a  most  dangerous  thing  ;  I  tremble  for  something  factitious, 
!  iome  malpractice  of  heart  and  illegitimate  process  ; 
1  Ve  are  so  prone  to  these  things,  with  our  terrible  notions  of  duty. 
Ah,  let  me  look,  let  me  watch,  let  me  wait,  unhurried,  unprompted  ! 
Bid  me  not  venture  on  aught  that  could  alter  or  end  what  is  present ! 
Say  not,  Time  flies,  and  Occasion,  that  never  returns,  is  departing  ! 
Drive  me  not  out,  ye  ill  angels  with  fiery  swords,  from  my  Eden, 
Waiting,  and  watching,  and   looking !     Let  love  be  its  own  inspira 

tion ! 

Shall  not  a  voice,  if  a  voice  there  must  be,  from  the  airs  that  environ, 
Yea,  from  the  conscious  heavens,  without  our  knowledge  or  effort, 
Break  into  audible  words  ?     And  love  be  its  own  inspiration  ?  " 

It  appears,  however,  that  even  this  hesitating  hero  would 
have  come  to  the  point  at  last.    In  a  book,  at  least,  the  hero 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  273 

has  nothing  else  to  do.  The  inevitable  restrictions  of  a  pretty 
story  hem  him  in  ;  to  wind  up  the  plot,  he  must  either  pro- 
pose or  die,  and  usually  he  prefers  proposing.  Mr.  Claude 
— for  such  is  the  name  of  Mr.  dough's  hero — is  evidently  on 
his  road  towards  the  inevitable  alternative,  when  his  fate 
intercepts  him  by  the  help  of  a  person  who  meant  nothing 
less.  There  is  a  sister  of  the  heroine,  who  is  herself  engaged 
to  a  rather  quick  person,  and  who  cannot  make  out  anyone's 
conducting  himself  differently  from  her  George  Vernon. 
She  writes : — 

"  Mr.  Claude,  you  must  know,  is  behaving  a  little  bit  better  ; 
He  and  Papa  are  great  friends  ;  but  he  really  is  too  shilly-shally, — 
So  unlike  George !     Yet  I  hope  that  the  matter  is  going  on  fairly. 
I  shall,  however,  get  George,  before  he  goes,  to  say  something. 
Dearest  Louise,  how  delightful  to  bring  young  people  together !  " 

As  the  heroine  says,  "  dear  Georgina  "  wishes  for  nothing  so 
much  as  to  show  her  adroitness.  George  Vernon  does  inter- 
fere, and  Mr.  Claude  may  describe  for  himself  the  change  it 
makes  in  his  fate : — 

"  Tibur  is  beautiful  too,  and  the  orchard  slopes,  and  the  Anio 
Falling,  falling  yet,  to  the  ancient  lyrical  cadence ; 
Tibur  and  Anio's  tide  ;  and  cool  from  Lucretilis  ever, 
With  the  Digentian  stream,  and  with  the  Bandusian  fountain, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  : — 
So  not  seeing  I  sung ;  so  seeing  and  listening  say  I, 
Here  as  I  sit  by  the  stream,  as  I  gaze  at  the  cell  of  the  Sibyl, 
Here  with  Albunea's  home  and  the  grove  of  Tiburnus  beside  me  ; * 
Tivoli  beautiful  is,  and  musical,  O  Teverone, 
Dashing  from  mountain  to  plain,  thy  parted  impetuous  waters ! 
Tivoli's  waters  and  rocks ;  and  fair  under  Monte  Gennaro, 
(Haunt  even  yet,  I    must    think,   as    I    wander    and    gaze,  of   the 
shadows, 

-domus  Albuneae  resonantis, 


Et  praeceps  Anio,  et  Tiburni  lucus,  et  uda 

Mobilibus  pomaria  rivis." 
VOL.    II.  l8 


274  Literary  Studies* 


Faded    and   pale,    yet   immortal,  of  Faunus,   the   Nymphs,  and  the 

Graces,) 

Fair  in  itself,  and  yet  fairer  with  human  completing  creations, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  : — 
So  not  seeing  I  sung  ;  so  now — Nor  seeing,  nor  hearing, 
Neither  by  Waterfall  lulled,  nor  folded  in  sylvan  embraces, 
Neither  by  cell  of  the  Sibyl,  nor  stepping  the  Monte  Gennaro, 
Seated  on  Anio's  bank,  nor  sipping  Bandusian  waters, 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  down  on  the  tile-clad  streets,  the 
Cupolas,  crosses  and  domes,  the  bushes  and  kitchen-gardens, 
Which,  by  the  grace  of  the  Tibur,  proclaim  themselves  Rome  of  the 

Roman, — 

But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  forth  to  the  vapoury  mountains, 
Cheating  the  prisoner  Hope  with  illusions  of  vision  and  fancy,  — 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  with  these  weary  soldiers  by  me, 
Waiting  till  Oudinot  enter,  to  reinstate  Pope  and  Tourist. 

Yes,  on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city, — 
So  it  appears ;  though  then  I  was  quite  uncertain  about  it. 
So,  however,  it  was.  And  now  to  explain  the  proceeding. 

I  was  to  go,  as  I  told  you,  I  think,  with  the  people  to  Florence. 
Only  the  day  before,  the  foolish  family  Vernon 
Made  some  uneasy  remarks,  as  we  walked  to  our  lodging  together, 
As  to  intentions,  forsooth,  and  so  forth.     I  was  astounded, 
Horrified  quite  ;  and  obtaining  just  then,  as  it  happened,  an  offer 
(No  common  favour)  of  seeing  the  great  Ludovisi  collection, 
Why,  I  made  this  a  pretence,  and  wrote  that  they  must  excuse  me. 
How  could  I  go  ?  Great  Heavens  !  to  conduct  a  permitted  flirtation. 
Under  those  vulgar  eyes,  the  observed  of  such  observers ! 
Well,  but  I  now,  by  a  series  of  fine  diplomatic  inquiries, 
Find  from  a  sort  of  relation,  a  good  and  sensible  woman, 
Who  is  remaining  at  Rome  with  a  brother  too  ill  for  removal, 
That  it  was  wholly  unsanctioned,  unknown, — not,  I  think,  by  Georgina. 
She,  however,  ere  this, — and  that  is  the  best  of  the  story, — 
She  and  the  Vernon,  thank  Heaven,  are  wedded  and  gone — honey- 
mooning. 

So — on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city. 
Tibur  I  have  not  seen,  nor  the  lakes  that  of  old  I  had  dreamt  of; 
Tibur  I  shall  not  see,  nor  Anio's  waters,  nor  deep  en- 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  ; 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  275 

Tibur  I  shall  not  see  ; — but  something  better  I  shall  see. 
Twice  I  have  tried  before,  and  failed  in  getting  the  horses ; 
Twice  I  have  tried  and  failed :  this  time  it  shall  not  be  a  failure." 

But,  of  course,  he  does  not  reach  Florence  till  the  heroine 
and  her  family  are  gone ;  and  he  hunts  after  them  through 
North  Italy,  not  very  skilfully,  and  then  he  returns  to  Rome; 
and  he  reflects,  certainly  not  in  a  very  dignified  or  heroic 
manner : — 


'  I  cannot  stay  at  Florence,  not  even  to  wait  for  a  letter. 
Galleries  only  oppress  me.     Remembrance  of  hope  I  had  cherished 
(Almost  more  than  as  hope,  when  I  passed  through  Florence  the  first 

time) 

Lies  like  a  sword  in  my  soul.     I  am  more  a  coward  than  ever, 
Chicken-hearted,  past  thought.     The  cafes  and  waiters  distress  me. 
All  is  unkind,  and,  alas !  I  am  ready  for  any  one's  kindness. 
Oh,  I  knew  it  of  old,  and  knew  it,  I  thought,  to  perfection, 
If  there  is  any  one  thing  in  the  world  to  preclude  all  kindness, 
It  is  the  need  of  it, — it  is  this  sad,  self-defeating  dependence. 
Why  is  this,  Eustace  ?     Myself,  were  I  stronger,  I  think  I  could  tell 

you. 

But  it  is  odd  when  it  comes.     So  plumb  I  the  deeps  of  depression, 
Daily  in  deeper,  and  find  no  support,  no  will,  no  purpose. 
AH  my  old  strengths  are  gone.     And  yet  I  shall  have  to  do  something 
Ah,  the  key  of  our  life,  that  passes  all  wards,  opens  all  locks, 
Is  not  I  will  but  /  must.     I  must, — I  must, — and  I  do  it. 

'  After  all,  do  I  know  that  I  really  cared  so  about  her  ? 
Do  whatever  I  will,  I  cannot  call  up  her  image  ; 
For  when  I  close  my  eyes,  I  see,  very  likely  St.  Peter's, 
Or  the  Pantheon  fagade,  or  Michael  Angelo's  figures, 
Or,  at  a  wish,  when  I  please,  the  Alban  hills  and  the  Forum, — 
But  that  face,  those  eyes, — ah  no,  never  anything  like  them  ; 
Only,  try  as  I  will,  a  sort  of  featureless  outline, 
And  a  pale  blank  orb,  which  no  recollection  will  add  to. 
After  all,  perhaps  there  was  something  factitious  about  it ; 
I  have  had  pain,  it  is  true :  I  have  wept,  and  so  have  the  actors. 


276  Literary  Studies. 


"  At  the  last  moment  I  have  your  letter,  for  which  I  was  waiting ; 
I  have  taken  my  place,  and  see  no  good  in  inquiries. 
Do  nothing  more,  good  Eustace,  I  pray  you.     It  only  will  vex  me. 
Take  no  measures.     Indeed,  should  we  meet,  I  could  not  be  certain  ; 
All  might  be  changed,  you  know.     Or  perhaps  there  was  nothing  to  be 

changed. 

It  is  a  curious  history,  this  ;  and  yet  I  foresaw  it ; 
I  could  have  told  it  before.     The  Fates,  it  is  clear,  are  against  us  ; 
For  it  is  certain  enough  I  met  with  the  people  you  mention ; 
They  were  at  Florence  the  day  I  returned  there,  and  spoke  to  me 

even ; 

Stayed  a  week,  saw  me  often  ;  departed,  and  whither  I  know  not. 
Great  is  Fate,  and  is  best.     I  believe  in  Providence  partly. 
What  is  ordained  is  right,  and  all  that  happens  is  ordered. 
Ah,  no,  that  isn't  it.     But  yet  I  retain  my  conclusion. 
I  will  go  where  I  am  led,  and  will  not  dictate  to  the  chances. 
Do  nothing  more,  I  beg.     If  you  love  me,  forbear  interfering." 

And  the  heroine,  like  a  sensible,  quiet  girl,  sums  up : — 

"You  have  heard  nothing;    of  course,    I  know  you   can    have   heard 

nothing. 

Ah,  well,  more  than  once  I  have  broken  my  purpose,  and  sometimes, 
Only  too  often,  have  looked  for  the  little  lake-steamer  to  bring  him. 
But  it  is  only  fancy, — I  do  not  really  expect  it. 
Oh,  and  you  see  I  know  so  exactly  how  he  would  take  it : 
Finding  the  chances  prevail  against  meeting  again,  he  would  banish 
Forthwith  every  thought  of  the  poor  little  possible  hope,  which 
I  myself  could  not  help,  perhaps,  thinking  only  too  much  of; 
He  would  resign  himself,  and  go.     I  see  it  exactly. 
So  I  also  submit,  although  in  a  different  manner. 
Can  you  not  really  come  ?     We  go  very  shortly  to  England." 

And  there,  let  us  hope,  she  found  a  more  satisfactory  lover 
and  husband. 

The  same  defect  which  prevented  Mr.  Claude  from 
obtaining  his  bride  will  prevent  this  poem  from  obtaining 
universal  popularity.  The  public  like  stories  which  come 
to  something  ;  Mr.  Arnold  teaches  that  a  great  poem  must 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  277 

be  founded  on  a  great  action,  and  this  one  is  founded  on 
a  long  inaction.  But  Art  has  many  mansions.  Many 
poets,  whose  cast  of  thought  unfits  them  for  very  diffused 
popularity,  have  yet  a  concentrated  popularity  which  suits 
them  and  which  lasts.  Henry  Taylor  has  wisely  said 
"that  a  poet  does  not  deserve  the  name  who  would  not 
rather  be  read  a  thousand  times  by  one  man,  than  a  single 
time  by  a  thousand  ".  This  repeated  perusal,  this  testing 
by  continual  repetition  and  close  contact,  is  the  very  test  of 
intellectual  poetry  ;  unless  such  poetry  can  identify  itself 
with  our  nature,  and  dissolve  itself  into  our  constant 
thought,  it  is  nothing,  or  less  than  nothing;  it  is  an  in- 
effectual attempt  to  confer  a  rare  pleasure ;  it  teases  by 
reminding  us  of  that  pleasure,  and  tires  by  the  effort  which 
it  demands  from  us.  But  if  a  poem  really  possesses  this 
capacity  of  intellectual  absorption — if  it  really  is  in  matter 
of  fact  accepted,  apprehended,  delighted  in,  and  retained  by 
a  large  number  of  cultivated  and  thoughtful  minds, — its 
non-recognition  by  what  is  called  the  public  is  no  more 
against  it  than  its  non-recognition  by  the  coal-heavers. 
The  half-educated  and  busy  crowd,  whom  we  call  the  public/ 
have  no  more  right  to  impose  their  limitations  on  highly 
educated  and  meditative  thinkers,  than  the  uneducated  and 
yet  more  numerous  crowd  have  to  impose  their  still  narrower 
limitations  on  the  half-educated.  The  coal-heaver  will  not 
read  any  books  whatever ;  the  mass  of  men  will  not  read 
an  intellectual  poem  :  it  can  hardly  ever  be  otherwise.  But 
timid  thinkers  must  not  dread  to  have  a  secret  and  rare 
faith.  But  little  deep  poetry  is  very  popular,  and  no  severe 
art.  Such  poetry  as  Mr.  Clough's,  especially,  can  never  be 
so  ;  its  subjects  would  forbid  it,  even  if  its  treatment  were 
perfect :  but  it  may  have  a  better  fate  ;  it  may  have  a 
tenacious  hold  on  the  solitary,  the  meditative,  and  the  calm. 
It  is  this  which  Mr.  Clough  would  have  wished  ;  he  did  not 


278  Literary  Studies. 


desire  to  be  liked  by  "  inferior  people  " — at  least  he  would 
have  distrusted  any  poem  of  his  own  which  they  did  like. 

The  artistic  skill  of  these  poems,  especially  of  the  poem 
from  which  we  have  extracted  so  much,  and  of  a  long  vaca- 
tion pastoral  published  in  the  Highlands,  is  often  excellent, 
and  occasionally  fails  when  you  least  expect  it.  There  was 
an  odd  peculiarity  in  Mr.  Clough's  mind  ;  you  never  could 
tell  whether  it  was  that  he  would  not  show  himself  to  the 
best  advantage,  or  whether  he  could  not ;  it  is  certain  that 
ne  very  often  did  not,  whether  in  life  or  in  books.  His  in- 
tellect moved  with  a  great  difficulty,  and  it  had  a  larger 
inertia  than  any  other  which  we  have  ever  known.  Pro- 
bltyly  there"  was  an  awkwardness  born  with  him,  and  his 
shyness  and  pride  prevented  him  from  curing  that  awkward- 
ness as  most  men  would  have  done.  He  felt  he  might  fail, 
and  he  knew  that  he  hated  to  fail.  He  neglected,  therefore, 
many  of  the  thousand  petty  trials  which  fashion  and  form 
tihe  accomplished  man  of  the  world.  Accordingly,  when  at 
last  he  wanted  to  do  something,  or  was  obliged  to  attempt 
/Something,  he  had  occasionally  a  singular  difficulty.  He 
/££jlld_»et  get  his  matter  out  of  him. 

In  poetry  he  had  a  further  difficulty,  arising  from 
perhaps  an  over-cultivated  ta"Ste.  He  was  so  good  a  dis- 
ciple of  Wordsworth,  he  hated  so  thoroughly  the  common 
sing-song  metres  of  Moore  and  Byron,  that  he  was  apt  to 
try  to  write  what  will  seem  to  many  persons  to  have  scarcely 
a  metre  at  all.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  metre  of  intel- 
lectual poetry  should  not  be  so  pretty  as  that  of  songs,  or  so 
plain  and  impressive  as  that  of  vigorous  passion.  The 
rhythm  should  pervade  it  and  animate  it,  but  should  not 
protrude  itself  upon  the  surface,  or  intrude  itself  upon  the 
attention.  It  should  be  a  latent  charm,  though  a  real  one. 
Yet,  though  this  doctrine  is  true,  it  is  nevertheless  a  danger- 
ous doctrine.  Most  writers  need  the  strict  fetters  of  familiar 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  279 

metre ;  as  soon  as  they  are  emancipated  from  this,  they 
fancy  that  any  words  of  theirs  are  metrical.  If  a  man  will 
read  any  expressive  and  favourite  words  of  his  own  often 
enough,  he  will  come  to  believe  that  they  are  rhythmical ; 
probably  they  have  a  rhythm  as  he  reads  them  ;  but  no 
notation  of  pauses  and  accents  could  tell  the  reader  how  to 
read  them  in  that  manner ;  and  when  read  in  any  other 
mode  they  may  be  prose  itself.  Some  of  Mr.  Clough's 
early  poems,  which  are  placed  at  the  beginning  of  this 
volume,  are  perhaps  examples,  more  or  less,  of  this  natural 
self-delusion.  Their  writer  could  read  them  as  verse,  JjuJ 
that  was  scarcely  his  business;  and  the  common  reader  fails. 

Of  one  metre,  however,  the  hexameter,  we  believe  the 
most  accomplished  judges,  and  also  common  readers,  agree 
that  Mr.  Clough  possessed  a  very  peculiar  mastery.  Perhaps 
he  first  showed  in  English  its^^xibility .  Whether  any 
consummate  poem  of  great  length  and  sustained  dignity 
can  be  written  in  this  metre,  and  in  our  language,  we  do  not 
know.  Until  a  great  poet  has  written  his  poem,  there  are 
commonly  no  lack  of  plausible  arguments  that  seem  to 
prove  he  cannot  write  it ;  but  Mr.  Clough  has  certainly 
shown  that,  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful  and  animated  artist, 
it  is  capable  of  adapting  itself  to  varied  descriptions  of  life 
and  manners,  to  noble  sentiments,  and  to  changing 
thoughts.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  flexible  of  English 
metres.  Better  than  any  others,  it  changes  from  grave 
to  gay  without  desecrating  what  should  be  solemn,  or 
disenchanting  that  which  should  be  graceful.  And  Mr. 
Clough  was  the  first  to  prove  this,  by  writing  a  noble  poem, 
in  which  it  was  done. 

In  one  principal  respect  Mr.  Clough's  two  poems  in 
hexameters,  and  especially  the  Roman  one,  from  which  we 
made  so  many  extracts,  are  very  excellent.  Somehow  or 
other  he  makes  you  understand  what  the  people  of  whom 


280  Literary  Studies. 


lie  is  writing  precisely  were.     You  may  object  to  the  means, 

puT"you  cannot  deny  the  result.     By  fate  he  was  thrown 

into  a  vortex  of  theological  and  metaphysical  speculation, 

but  his  genius  was  better  suited  to  be  the  spectator  of  a 

more  active  and  moving  scene.      The  play  of  mind  upon 

mind ;  the  contrasted  view  which  contrasted  minds  take  of 

great  subjects ;  the  odd  irony  of  life  which  so  often  thrusts 

into  conspicuous  places  exactly  what  no  one  would  expect 

(to   find  in  those  places, — these  were  his  subjects.     Under 

'  happy   circumstances,   he   might  have   produced   on    such 

themes   something  which  the  mass  of  readers  would  have 

greatly  liked  ;  as  it  is,  he  has  produced  a  little  which  medi- 

:ative  readers  will  much  value,  and  which  they  will   long 

remember. 

Of  Mr.  Clough's  character  it  would  be  out  of  place  to 
say  anything,  except  in  so  far  as  it  elucidates  his  poems 
The  sort  of  conversation  for  which  he  was  most  remarkable 
rises  again  in  the  "Amours  de  Voyage,"  and  gives  them,  to 
those  who  knew  him   in   life,  a  very  peculiar  charm.     It 
would  not  be  exact  to  call  the  best  lines  a  pleasant  cynicism  ; 
for  cynicism  has  a  bad  name,  and  the  ill-nature  and  other 
offensive   qualities   which   have   given   it  that  name  were 
utterly  out  of  Mr.  Clough's  way.      Though  without  much 
fame,  he  had  no  envy.     But  he  had  a  strong  realism.     He 
saw  what  it  is  considered  cynical  to  see — the  absurdities  of 
nany  persons,  the  pomposities  of  many  creeds,  the  splendid 
:eal  with  which  missionaries  rush  on  to  teach  what  they  do  not 
:now,  the  wonderful  earnestness  with  which  most  incom- 
>lete  solutions  of  the  universe  are  thrust  upon  us  as  com- 
pete and  satisfying.     "Le  fond  de  la  Providence"  says  the 
French  novelist,   "  c'est  Vironie"     Mr.   Clough  would  not 
have  said  that ;  but  he  knew  what  it  meant,  and  what  was 
the  portion  of  truth  contained  in  it.     Undeniably  this  is  an 
odd  world,  whether  it  should  have  been  so  or  no;  and  all  our 


Mr.  dough's  Poems.  281 

speculations  upon  it  should  begin  with  some  admission  of 
its  strangeness  and  singularity.  The  habit  of  dwelling  on 
such  thoughts  as  these  will  not  of  itself  make  a  man  happy, 
and  may  make  unhappy  one  who  is  inclined  to  be  so.  Mr. 
Clough  in  his  time  felt  more  than  most  men  the  weight  of 
the  unintelligible  world ;  but  such  thoughts  make  an  in- 
structive man.  Several  survivors  may  think  they  owe 
much  to  Mr.  dough's  quiet  question,  "Ah,  then,  you! 
think — ? "  Many  pretending  creeds  and  many  wonderful 
demonstrations,  passed  away  before  that  calm  inquiry. 
had  a  habit  of  putting  your  own  doctrine  concisely  before 
you,  so  that  you  might  see  what  it  came  to,  and  that  you 
did  not  like  it.  Even  now  that  he  is  gone,  some  may  feel 
the  recollection  of  his  society  a  check  on  unreal  theories  and 
half-mastered  thoughts.  Let  us  part  from  him  in  his  own 
words : — 

"  Some  future  day,  when  what  is  now  is  not, 
When  all  old  faults  and  follies  are  forgot 
And  thoughts  of  difference  passed  like  dreams  away, 
We'll  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

"  When  all  that  hindered,  all  that  vexed  our  love, 
As  tall  rank  weeds  will  climb  the  blade  above, 
When  all  but  it  has  yielded  to  decay, 
We'll  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

"  When  we  have  proved,  each  on  his  course  alone, 
The  wider  world,  and  learnt  what's  now  unknown, 
Have  made  life  clear,  and  worked  out  each  a  way, 
We'll  meet  again, — we  shall  have  much  to  say 

"  With  happier  mood,  and  feelings  born  anew, 
Our  boyhood's  bygone  fancies  we'll  review, 
Talk  o'er  old  talks,  play  as  we  used  to  play, 
And  meet  again,  on  many  a  future  day. 

"  Some  day,  which  oft  our  hearts  shall  yearn  to  see, 
In  some  far  year,  though  distant  yet  to  be, 
Shall  we  indeed, — ye  winds  and  waters,  say  ! — 
Meet  yet  again,  upon  some  future  day  ?  " 


282 


STERNE  AND  THACKERAY.1 

(1864.) 

MR.  PERCY  FITZGERALD  has  expressed  his  surprise  that  no 
one  before  him  has  narrated  the  life  of  Sterne  in  two  volumes. 
We  are  much  more  surprised  that  he  has  done  so.  The  life 
of  Sterne  was  of  the  very  simplest  sort.  He  was  a  York- 
shire clergyman,  and  lived  for  the  most  part  a  sentimental, 
questionable,  jovial  life  in  the  country.  He  was  a  queer 
parson,  according  to  our  notions ;  but  in  those  days  there 
were  many  queer  parsons.  Late  in  life  he  wrote  a  book  or 
two,  which  gave  him  access  to  London  society ;  and  then 
he  led  a  still  more  questionable  and  unclerical  life  at  the 
edge  of  the  great  world.  After  that  he  died  in  something 
like  distress,  and  leaving  his  family  in  something  like 
misery.  A  simpler  life,  as  far  as  facts  go,  never  was 
known ;  and  simple  as  it  is,  the  story  has  been  well  told  by 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  has  been  well  commented  on  by  Mr. 
Thackeray.  It  should  have  occurred  to  Mr.  Fitzgerald  that 
a  subject  may  only  have  been  briefly  treated  because  it  is  a 
limited  and  simple  subject,  which  suggests  but  few  remarks, 
and  does  not  require  an  elaborate  and  copious  description. 

There  are  but  few  materials,  too,  for  a  long  life  of 
Sterne.  Mr.  Fitzgerald  has  stuffed  his  volumes  with 

1  The  Life  of  Laurence  Sterne.  By  Percy  Fitzgerald,  M.A. , 
M.R.I.A.  In  two  volumes.  Chapman  and  Hall. 

Thackeray  the  Humourist  and  the  Man  of  Letters,  By  Theodore 
Taylor,  Esq.  London ;  John  Camden  Hotten, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  283 

needless  facts  about  Sterne's  distant  relations,  his  great- 
uncles  and  ninth  cousins,  in  which  no  one  now  can  take 
the  least  interest.  Sterne's  daughter,  who  was  left  ill-off, 
did  indeed  publish  two  little  volumes  of  odd  letters,  which 
no  clergyman's  daughter  would  certainly  have  published 
now.  But  even  these  are  too  small  in  size  and  thin  in 
matter  to  be  spun  into  a  copious  narrative.  We  should  in 
this  [the  National']  Review  have  hardly  given  even  a  brief 
sketch  of  Sterne's  life,  if  we  did  not  think  that  his  artistic 
character  presented  one  fundamental  resemblance  and  many 
superficial  contrasts  to  that  of  a  great  man  whom  we  have 
lately  lost.  We  wish  to  point  these  out ;  and  a  few  inter- 
spersed remarks  on  the  life  of  Sterne  will  enable  us  to 
enliven  the  tedium  of  criticism  with  a  little  interest  from 
human  life. 

Sterne's  father  was  a  shiftless,  roving  Irish  officer  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century.  He  served  in  Marlborough's 
wars,  and  was  cast  adrift,  like  many  greater  people,  by  the 
caprice  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  sudden  peace  of  Utrecht. 
Of  him  only  one  anecdote  remains.  He  was,  his  son  tells 
us,  "  a  little  smart  man,  somewhat  rapid  and  hasty "  in 
his  temper ;  and  during  some  fighting  at  Gibraltar  he  got 
into  a  squabble  with  another  young  officer,  a  Captain 
Phillips.  The  subject,  it  seems,  was  a  goose ;  but  that  is 
not  now  material.  It  ended  in  a  duel,  which  was  fought 
with  swords  in  a  room.  Captain  Phillips  pinned  Ensign 
Sterne  to  a  plaster-wall  behind ;  upon  which  he  quietly 
asked,  or  is  said  to  have  asked,  "Do  wipe  the  plaster  off 
your  sword  before  you  pull  it  out  of  me  " ;  which,  if  true, 
showed  at  least  presence  of  mind.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  in  his 
famine  of  matter,  discusses  who  this  Captain  Phillips  was  ; 
but  into  this  we  shall  not  follow  him. 

A  smart,  humorous,  shiftless  father  of  this  sort  is  not 
perhaps  a  bad  father  for  a  novelist.  Sterne  was  dragged 


284  Literary  Studies. 


here  and  there,  through  scenes  of  life  where  no  correct  and 
thriving  parent  would  ever  have  taken  him.  Years  after- 
wards, with  all  their  harshness  softened  and  half  their  pains 
dissembled,  Sterne  dashed  them  upon  pages  which  will 
live  for  ever.  Of  money  and  respectability  Sterne  inherited 
from  his  father  little  or  none ;  but  he  inherited  two  main 
elements  of  his  intellectual  capital — a  great  store  of  odd 
scenes,  and  the  sensitive  Irish  nature  which  appreciates  odd 
scenes. 

Sterne  was  born  in  the  year  1713,  the  year  of  the  peace 
of  Utrecht,  which  cast  his  father  adrift  upon  the  world. 
Of  his  mother  we  know  nothing.  Years  after,  it  was  said 
that  he  behaved  ill  to  her ;  at  least  neglected  and  left  her 
in  misery  when  he  had  the  means  of  placing  her  in  comfort. 
His  enemies  neatly  said  that  he  preferred  "  whining  over  a 
dead  ass  to  relieving  a  living  mother ".  But  these  accusa- 
tions have  never  been  proved.  Sterne  was  not  remarkable 
for  active  benevolence,  and  certainly  may  have  neglected  an 
old  and  uninteresting  woman,  even  though  that  woman  was 
his  mother ;  he  was  a  bad  hand  at  dull  duties,  and  did  not 
like  elderly  females ;  but  we  must  not  condemn  him  on 
simple  probabilities,  or  upon  a  neat  epigram  and  loose 
tradition.  "  The  regiment,"  says  Sterne,  "  in  which  my 
father  served  being  broke,  he  left  Ireland  as  soon  as  I  was 
able  to  be  carried,  and  came  to  the  family  seat  at  Elvington, 
near  York,  where  his  mother  lived."  After  this  he  was 
carried  about  for  some  years,  as  his  father  led  the  rambling 
life  of  a  poor  ensign,  who  was  one  of  very  many  engaged 
during  a  very  great  war,  and  discarded  at  a  hasty  peace. 
Then,  perhaps  luckily,  his  father  died,  and  "my  cousin 
Sterne  of  Elvington,"  as  he  calls  him,  took  charge  of  him, 
and  sent  him  to  school  and  college.  At  neither  of  these 
was  he  very  eminent.  He  told  one  story  late  in  life  which 
may  be  true,  but  seems  very  unlike  the  usual  school-life. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  285 

"  My  schoolmaster,"  he  says,  "  had  the  ceiling  of  the 
schoolroom  new  whitewashed :  the  ladder  remained  there. 
I  one  unlucky  day  mounted  it,  and  wrote  with  a  brush  in 
large  capitals  LAU.  STERNE,  for  which  the  usher  severely 
punished  me.  My  master  was  much  hurt  at  this,  and  said 
before  me  that  never  should  that  name  be  effaced,  for  I  was 
a  boy  of  genius,  and  he  was  sure  I  should  come  to  prefer- 
ment." But  "  genius  "  is  rarely  popular  in  places  of  educa- 
tion ;  and  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  remarkable  that  so  senti- 
mental a  man  as  Sterne  should  have  chanced  upon  so 
sentimental  an  instructor.  It  is  wise  to  be  suspicious  of 
aged  reminiscents ;  they  are  like  persons  entrusted  with 
"  untold  gold  "  ;  there  is  no  check  on  what  they  tell  us. 

Sterne  went  to  Cambridge,  and  though  he  did  not  ac- 
quire elaborate  learning,  he  thoroughly  learned  a  gentle- 
manly stock  of  elementary  knowledge.  There  is  even  some- 
thing scholarlike  about  his  style.  It  bears  the  indefinable 
traces  which  an  exact  study  of  words  will  always  leave  upon 
the  use  of  words.  He  was  accused  of  stealing  learning, 
and  it  is  likely  enough  that  a  great  many  needless  quotations 
which  were  stuck  into  Tristram  Shandy  were  abstracted 
from  second-hand  storehouses  where  such  things  are  to  be 
found.  But  what  he  stole  was  worth  very  little,  and  his 
theft  may  now  at  least  be  pardoned,  for  it  injures  the  popu- 
larity of  his  works.  Our  present  novel-readers  do  not  at  all 
care  for  an  elaborate  caricature  of  the  scholastic  learning ; 
it  is  so  obsolete  that  we  do  not  care  to  have  it  mimicked. 
Much  of  Tristram  Shandy  is  a  sort  of  antediluvian  fun,  in 
which  uncouth  Saurian  jokes  play  idly  in  an  unintelligible 
world. 

When  he  left  college,  Sterne  had  a  piece  of  good  fortune 
which  in  fact  ruined  him.  He  had  an  uncle  with  much 
influence  in  the  Church,  and  he  was  thereby  induced  to 
enter  the  Church.  There  could  not  have  been  a  greater 


286  Literary  Studies. 


error.  He  had  no  special  vice ;  he  was  notorious  for  no 
wild  dissipation  or  unpardonable  folly;  he  had  done  nothing 
which  even  in  this  more  discreet  age  would  be  considered 
imprudent.  He  had  even  a  refinement  which  must  have 
saved  him  from  gross  vice,  and  a  nicety  of  nature  which 
must  have  saved  him  from  coarse  associations.  But  for  all 
that  he  was  as  little  fit  for  a  Christian  priest  as  if  he  had 
been  a  drunkard  and  a  profligate.  Perhaps  he  was  less  fit. 

There  are  certain  persons  whom  taste  guides,  much  as 
morality  and  conscience  guide  ordinary  persons.  They 
are  "  gentlemen  ".  They  revolt  from  what  is  coarse  ;  are 
sickened  by  that  which  is  gross ;  hate  what  is  ugly.  They 
have  no  temptation  to  what  we  may  call  ordinary  vices ; 
they  have  no  inclination  for  such  raw  food  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  repelled  by  it  and  loathe  it.  The  law  in  their 
members  does  not  war  against  the  law  of  their  mind ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  taste  of  their  bodily  nature  is  mainly  in 
harmony  with  what  conscience  would  prescribe  or  religion 
direct.  They  may  not  have  heard  the  saying  that  the 
"beautiful  is  higher  than  the  good,  for  it  includes  the  good". 
But  when  they  do  hear  it,  it  comes  upon  them  as  a  revelation 
of  their  instinctive  creed,  of  the  guidance  under  which  they 
have  been  living  all  their  lives.  They  are  pure  because  it 
is  ugly  to  be  impure ;  innocent  because  it  is  out  of  taste  to 
be  otherwise ;  they  live  within  the  hedgerows  of  polished 
society ;  they  do  not  wish  to  go  beyond  them  into  the  great 
deep  of  human  life ;  they  have  a  horror  of  that  "  impious 
ocean,"  yet  not  of  the  impiety,  but  of  the  miscellaneous 
noise,  the  disordered  confusion  of  the  whole.  These  are  the 
men  whom  it  is  hardest  to  make  Christian — for  the  simplest 
reason  ;  paganism  is  sufficient  for  them.  Their  pride  of  the 
eye  is  a  good  pride ;  their  love  of  the  flesh  is  a  delicate  and 
directing  love.  They  keep  "  within  the  pathways  "  because 
they  dislike  the  gross,  the  uncultured  and  the  untrodden. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  287 

Thus  they  reject  the  primitive  precept  which  comes  before 
Christianity.  Repent !  repent !  says  a  voice  in  the  wilder- 
ness ;  but  the  delicate  pagan  feels  superior  to  the  voice  in 
the  wilderness.  Why  should  he  attend  to  this  uncouth 
person  ?  He  has  nice  clothes  and  well-chosen  food,  the 
treasures  of  exact  knowledge,  the  delicate  results  of  the 
highest  civilisation.  Is  he  to  be  directed  by  a  person  of 
savage  habits,  with  a  distorted  countenance,  who  lives  on 
wild  honey,  who  does  not  wear  decent  clothes  ?  To  the 
pure  worshipper  of  beauty,  to  the  naturally  refined  pagan, 
conscience  and  the  religion  of  conscience  are  not  merely 
intruders,  but  barbarous  intruders.  At  least  so  it  is  in 
youth,  when  life  is  simple  and  temptations,  if  strong,  are 
distinct.  Years  afterwards,  probably,  the  purest  pagan  will 
be  taught  by  a  constant  accession  of  indistinct  temptations, 
and  by  a  gradual  declension  of  his  nature,  that  taste  at  the 
best,  and  sentiment  of  the  very  purest,  are  insufficient  guides 
in  the  perplexing  labyrinth  of  the  world. 

Sterne  was  a  pagan.  He  went  into  the  Church ;  but 
Mr.  Thackeray,  no -bad  judge,  said  most  justly  that  his 
sermons  "have  not  a  single  Christian  sentiment".  They  are 
well-expressed,  vigorous,  moral  essays;  but  they  are  no 
more.  Much  more  was  not  expected  by  many  congregations 
in  the  last  age.  The  secular  feeling  of  the  English  people, 
though  always  strong, — though  strong  in  Chaucer's  time, 
and  though  strong  now, — was  never  so  all-powerful  as  in 
the  last  century.  It  was  in  those  days  that  the  poet  Crabbe 
was  remonstrated  with  for  introducing  heaven  and  hell  into 
his  sermons;  such  extravagances,  he  was  told,  were  very 
well  for  the  Methodists,  but  a  clergyman  should  confine 
himself  to  sober  matters  of  this  world,  and  show  the  pru- 
dence and  the  reasonableness  of  virtue  during  this  life. 
There  is  not  much  of  heaven  and  hell  in  Sterne's  sermons, 
and  what  there  is  seems  a  rhetorical  emphasis  which  is  not 


288  Literary  Studies. 


essential  to  the  argument,  and  which  might  perhaps  as 
well  be  left  out.  Auguste  Comte  might  have  admitted  most 
of  these  sermons ;  they  are  healthy  statements  of  earthly 
truths,  but  they  would  be  just  as  true  if  there  was  no  religion 
at  all.  Religion  helps  the  argument,  because  foolish  people 
might  be  perplexed  with  this  world,  and  they  yield  readily 
to  another ;  religion  enables  you — such  is  the  real  doctrine 
of  these  divines,  when  you  examine  it — to  coax  and  persuade 
those  whom  you  cannot  rationally  convince ;  but  it  does 
not  alter  the  matter  in  hand — it  does  not  affect  that  of 
which  you  wish  to  persuade  men,  for  you  are  but  inculcat- 
ing a  course  of  conduct  in  this  life.  Sterne's  sermons  would 
be  just  as  true  if  the  secularists  should  succeed  in  their 
argument,  and  the  "  valuable  illusion "  of  a  deity  were 
omitted  from  the  belief  of  mankind. 

However,  in  fact,  Sterne  took  orders,  and  by  the  aid  of 
his  uncle,  who  was  a  Church  politician,  and  who  knew  the 
powers  that  were,  he  obtained  several  small  livings.  Being 
a  pluralist  was  a  trifle  in  those  easy  times ;  nobody  then 
thought  that  fhe  parishioners  of  a  parson  had  a  right  to  his 
daily  presence ;  if  some  provision  were  made  for  the  per- 
formance of  a  Sunday  service,  he  had  done  his  duty,  and  he 
could  spend  the  surplus  income  where  he  liked.  He  might 
perhaps  be  bound  to  reside,  if  health  permitted,  on  one  of 
his  livings,  but  the  law  allowed  him  to  have  many,  and  he 
could  not  be  compelled  to  reside  on  them  all.  Sterne 
preached  well-written  sermons  on  Sundays,  and  led  an  easy 
pagan  life  on  other  days,  and  no  one  blamed  him. 

He  fell  in  love  too,  and  after  he  was  dead  his  daughter 
found  two  or  three  of  his  love-letters  to  her  mother,  which 
she  rashly  published.  They  have  been  the  unfeeling  sport 
of  persons  not  in  love  up  to  the  present  time.  Years  ago 
Mr.  Thackeray  used  to  make  audiences  laugh  till  they  cried 
by  reading  one  or  two  of  them,  and  contrasting  them  with 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  289 

certain  other  letters  also  about  his  wife,  but  written  many 
years  later.     This  is  the  sort  of  thing : — 

"  Yes  1  I  will  steal  from  the  world,  and  not  a  babbling  tongue  shall 
tell  where  I  am — Echo  shall  not  so  much  as  whisper  my  hiding-place — 
suffer  thy  imagination  to  paint  it  as  a  little  sun-gilt  cottage,  on  the  side 
of  a  romantic  hill — dost  thou  think  I  will  leave  love  and  friendship  behind 
me  ?  No !  they  shall  be  my  companions  in  solitude,  for  they  will  sit 
down  and  rise  up  with  me  in  the  amiable  form  of  my  L. — We  will  be  as 
merry  and  as  innocent  as  our  first  parents  in  Paradise,  before  the  arch- 
fiend entered  that  undescribable  scene. 

"  The  kindest  affections  will  have  room  to  shoot  and  expand  in  our 
retirement,  and  produce  such  fruit  as  madness,  and  envy,  and  ambition 
have  always  killed  in  the  bud. — Let  the  human  tempest  and  hurricane 
rage  at  a  distance,  the  desolation  is  beyond  the  horizon  of  peace.  My 
L.  has  seen  a  polyanthus  blow  in  December — some  friendly  wall  has 
sheltered  it  from  the  biting  wind.  No  planetary  influence  shall  reach  us, 
but  that  which  presides  and  cherishes  the  sweetest  flowers. — God  preserve 
us !  how  delightful  this  prospect  in  idea !  We  will  build  and  we  will 
plant,  in  our  own  way- — simplicity  shall  not  be  tortured  by  art — we  will 
learn  of  nature  how  to  live — she  shall  be  our  alchymist,  to  mingle  all  the 
good  of  life  into  one  salubrious  draught. — The  gloomy  family  of  care  and 
distrust  shall  be  banished  from  our  dwelling,  guarded  by  thy  kind  and 
tutelar  deity — we  will  sing  our  choral  songs  of  gratitude,  and  rejoice  to 
the  end  of  our  pilgrimage. 

"  Adieu,  my  L.     Return  to  one  who  languishes  for  thy  society. 

L.  STERNE." 

The  beautiful  language  with  which  young  ladies  were 
wooed  a  century  ago  is  a  characteristic  of  that  extinct  age  ; 
at  least,  we  fear  that  no  such  beautiful  English  will  be  dis- 
covered when  our  secret  repositories  are  ransacked.  The 
age  of  ridicule  has  come  in,  and  the  age  of  good  words  has 
gone  out. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  however,  that  Sterne  was 
really  in  love  with  Mrs.  Sterne.  People  have  doubted  it 
because  of  these  beautiful  words ;  but,  in  fact,  Sterne  was 
just  the  sort  of  man  to  be  subject  to  this  kind  of  feeling. 
Ke  took — and  to  this  he  owes  his  fame — the  sensitive  view 
VOL.  n.  19 


2 go  Literary  Studies. 


of  life.  He  regarded  it  not  from  the  point  of  view  of  intel- 
lect, or  conscience,  or  religion,  but  in  the  plain  way  in  which 
natural  feeling  impresses,  and  will  always  impress,  a  natural 
person.  He  is  a  great  author;  certainly  not  because  of 
great  thoughts,  for  there  is  scarcely  a  sentence  in  his 
writings  which  can  be  called  a  thought ;  nor  from  sublime 
conceptions  which  enlarge  the  limits  of  our  imagination, 
for  he  never  leaves  the  sensuous, — but  because  of  his 
wonderful  sympathy  with,  and  wonderful  power  of  repre- 
senting, simple  human  nature.  The  best  passages  in 
Sterne  are  those  which  every  one  knows,  like  this  : — 

"Thou  hast  left  this  matter  short,  said  my  uncle  Toby  to  the 

corporal,  as  he  was  putting  him  to  bed, and  I  will  tell  thee  in  what, 

Trim. In  the  first  place,  when  thou  madest  an  offer  of  my  services 

to  Le  Fevre, — as  sickness  and  travelling  are  both  expensive,  and  thou 
knowest  he  was  but  a  poor  lieutenant,  with  a  son  to  subsist  as  well  as 
himself,  out  of  his  pay, — that  thou  didst  not  make  an  offer  to  him  of  my 
purse  ;  because,  had  he  stood  in  need,  thou  knowest,  Trim,  he  had  been 

as  welcome  to  it  as  myself. Your  honour  knows,  said  the  corporal,  I 

had  no  orders  ; True,  quoth  my  uncle  Toby, — thou  didst  very  right, 

Trim,  as  a  soldier,  but  certainly  very  wrong  as  a  man. 

"  In  the  second  place,  for  which,  indeed,  thou  hast  the  same  excuse, 

continued  my  uncle  Toby, when  thou  offeredst  him  whatever  was  in 

my  house, — thou  shouldst  have  offered  him  my  house  too : A  sick 

brother  officer  should  have  the  best  quarters,  Trim,  and  if  we  had  him 

with  us, — we  could  tend  and  look  to  him : Thou  art  an  excellent 

nurse  thyself,  Trim, — and  what  with  thy  care  of  him,  and  the  old 
woman's,  and  his  boy's,  and  mine  together,  we  might  recruit  him  again 
at  once,  and  set  him  upon  his  legs. 

" In  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  added  my  uncle  Toby,  smiling, 

— he  might  march. He  will  never  march,  an'  please  your  honour,  in 

this  world,  said  the  corporal : He  will  march,  said  my  uncle  Toby, 

rising  up  from  the  side  of  the  bed,  with  one  shoe  off: An'  please  your 

honour,  said  the  corporal,  he  will  never  march,  but  to  his  grave : He 

shall  march,  cried  my  uncle  Toby,  marching  the  foot  which  had  a  shoe 
on,  though  without  advancing  an  inch, — he  shall  march  to  his  regiment. 

He  cannot  stand  it,  said  the  corporal: He  shall  be  supported, 

said  my  uncle  Toby : He'll  drop  at  last,  said  the  corporal,  and  what; 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  291 

will  become  of  his  boy  ? He  shall  not  drop,  said  my  uncle  Toby, 

firmly. A-well-o'day, — do  what  we  can  for  him,  said  Trim,  maintain- 
ing his  point, — the  poor  soul  will  die : He  shall  not  die,  by  G — ! 

cried  my  uncle  Toby. 

"  — The  ACCUSING  SPIRIT,  which  flew  up  to  heaven's  chancery  with 
the  oath,  blush'd  as  he  gave  it  in ; — and  the  RECORDING  ANGEL,  as  he 
wrote  it  down,  dropp'd  a  tear  upon  the  word,  and  blotted  it  out  for  ever. 

" — My  uncle  Toby  went  to  his  bureau, — put  his  purse  into  his 
breeches  pocket,  and  having  ordered  the  corporal  to  go  early  in  the 
morning  for  a  physician, — he  went  to  bed,  and  fell  asleep. 

"  The  sun  looked  bright  the  morning  after,  to  every  eye  in  the 
village  but  Le  Fevre's  and  his  afflicted  son's ;  the  hand  of  death 
pressed  heavy  upon  his  eye-lids,- — -and  hardly  could  the  wheel  at 
the  cistern  turn  round  its  circle, — when  my  uncle  Toby,  who  had 
rose  up  an  hour  before  his  wonted  time,  entered  the  lieutenant's  room, 
and  without  preface  or  apology,  sat  himself  down  upon  the  chair  by 
the  bed-side,  and  independently  of  all  modes  and  customs,  opened 
the  curtain  in  the  manner  an  old  friend  and  brother  officer  would 
have  done  it,  and  asked  him  how  he  did, — how  he  had  rested  in  the 
night, — what  was  his  complaint, — where  was  his  pain, — and  what  he 

could  do  to  help  him : and  without  giving  him  time  to  answer 

any  one  of  the  inquiries,  went  on  and  told  him  of  the  little  plan 
which  he  had  been  concerting  with  the  corporal  the  night  before  for 
him. 

" You  shall  go  home  directly,  Le  Fevre,  said  my  uncle  Toby,  to 

my  house, — and  we'll  send  for  a  doctor  to  see  what's  the  matter, — and 

we'll  have  an  apothecary, — and  the  corporal  shall  be  your  nurse ; and 

I'll  be  your  servant,  Le  Fevre. 

"  There  was  a  frankness  in  my  uncle  Toby, — not  the  effect  of  famili- 
arity,— but  the  cause  of  it, — which  let  you  at  once  into  his  soul,  and 
showed  you  the  goodness  of  his  nature  ;  to  this  there  was  something  in 
his  looks,  and  voice,  and  manner,  super-added,  which  eternally  beckoned 
to  the  unfortunate  to  come  and  take  shelter  under  him ;  so  that  before 
my  uncle  Toby  had  half  finished  the  kind  offers  he  was  making  to  the 
father,  had  the  son  insensibly  pressed  up  close  to  his  knees,  and  had 
taken  hold  of  the  breast  of  his  coat,  and  was  pulling  it  towards  him. 
— The  blood  and  spirit  of  Le  Fevre,  which  were  waxing  cold  and  slow 
within  him,  and  were  retreating  to  their  last  citadel,  the  heart, — rallied 
back, — the  film  forsook  his  eyes  for  a  moment, — he  looked  up  wishfully 
in  my  uncle  Toby's  face, — then  cast  a  look  upon  his  boy, — and  that 
ligament,  fine  as  it  was, — was  never  broken. — 


292  Literary  Studies. 


"  Nature  instantly  ebb'd  again, — the  film  returned  to  its  place, 

the  pulse  fluttered stopp'd went  on throbb'd stopp'd 

again moved stopp'd shall  I  go  on  ? No."1 

In  one  of  the  "  Roundabout  Papers "  Mr.  Thackeray 
introduces  a  literary  man  complaining  of  his  "  sensibility". 
"  Ah,"  he  replies,  "  my  good  friend,  your  sensibilty  is  your 
livelihood  :  if  you  did  not  feel  the  events  and  occurrences  of 
life  more  acutely  than  others,  you  could  not  describe  them 
better ;  and  it  is  the  excellence  of  your  description  by  which 
you  live."  This  is  precisely  true  of  Sterne.  He  is  a  great 
author  because  he  felt  acutely.  He  is  the  most  pathetic  of 
writers  because  he  had — when  writing,  at  least — the  most 
pity.  He  was,  too,  we  believe,  pretty  sharply  in  love  with 
Mrs.  Sterne,  because  he  was  sensitive  to  that  sort  of  feeling 
likewise. 

The  difficulty  of  this  sort  of  character  is  the  difficulty  oi 
keeping  it.  It  does  not  last.  There  is  a  certain  bloom  of 
sensibility  and  feeling  about  it  which,  in  the  course  of 
nature,  is  apt  to  fade  soon,  and  which,  when  it  has  faded, 
there  is  nothing  to  replace.  A  character  with  the  binding 
elements — with  a  firm  will,  a  masculine  understanding,  and 
a  persistent  conscience — may  retain,  and  perhaps  improve, 
the  early  and  original  freshness.  But  a  loose-set,  though 
pure  character,  the  moment  it  is  thrown  into  temptation 
sacrifices  its  purity,  loses  its  gloss,  and  gets,  so  to  speak, 
out  01  form  entirely. 

We  do  not  know  with  great  accuracy  what  Sterne's 
temptations  were ;  but  there  was  one,  which  we  can  trace 
with  some  degree  of  precision,  which  has  left  ineffaceable 
traces  on  his  works, — which  probably  left  some  traces  upon 
his  character  and  conduct.  There  was  in  that  part  of  York- 
shire a  certain  John  Hall  Stevenson,  a  country  gentleman 

1  Tristram  Shandy,  book  vi.,  chaps,  viii.-x. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  293 


of  some  fortune,  and  possessed  of  a  castle,  which  he  called 
Crazy  Castle.  Thence  he  wrote  tales,  which  he  named 
"  Crazy  Tales,"  but  which  certainly  are  not  entitled  to  any 
such  innocent  name.  The  license  of  that  age  was  unques- 
tionably wonderful.  A  man  of  good  property  could  write 
any  evil.  There  was  no  legal  check,  or  ecclesiastical  check, 
and  hardly  any  check  of  public  opinion.  These  "  Crazy 
Tales "  have  license  without  humour,  and  vice  without 
amusement.  They  are  the  writing  of  a  man  with  some  wit, 
but  only  enough  wit  for  light  conversation,  which  becomes 
overworked  and  dull  when  it  is  reduced  to  regular  composi- 
tion and  made  to  write  long  tales.  The  author,  feeling  his 
wit  jaded  perpetually,  becomes  immoral,  in  the  vain  hope 
that  he  will  cease  to  be  dull.  He  has  attained  his  reward  ; 
he  will  be  remembered  for  nauseous  tiresomeness  by  all 
who  have  read  him. 

But  though  the  "Crazy  Tales"  are  now  tedious,  Crazy 
Castle  was  a  pleasant  place,  at  least  to  men  like  Sterne. 
He  was  an  idle  young  parson,  with  much  sensibility,  much 
love  of  life  and  variety,  and  not  a  bit  of  grave  goodness. 
The  dull  duties  of  a  country  parson,  as  we  now  understand 
them,  would  never  have  been  to  his  taste ;  and  the  sinecure 
idleness  then  permitted  to  parsons  left  him  open  to  every 
temptation.  The  frail  texture  of  merely  natural  purity,  the 
soft  fibre  of  the  instinctive  pagan,  yield  to  the  first  casualty. 
Exactly  what  sort  of  life  they  led  at  Crazy  Castle  we  do  not 
know ;  but  vaguely  we  do  know,  and  we  may  be  sure  Mrs. 
Sterne  was  against  it. 

One  part  of  Crazy  Castle  has  had  effects  which  will  last  as 
long  as  English  literature.  It  had  a  library  richly  stored  in 
old  folio  learning,  and  also  in  the  amatory  reading  of  other 
days.  Every  page  of  Tristram  Shandy  bears  traces  of  both 
elements.  Sterne,  when  he  wrote  it,  had  filled  his  head  and 
his  mind,  not  with  the  literature  of  his  own  age,  but  with 


Literary  Studies. 


the  literature  of  past  ages.  He  was  thinking  of  Rabelais 
rather  than  of  Fielding ;  of  forgotten  romances  rather  than 
of  Richardson.  He  wrote,  indeed,  of  his  own  times  and  of 
men  he  had  seen,  because  his  sensitive  vivid  nature  would 
only  endure  to  write  of  present  things.  But  the  mode  in 
which  he  wrote  was  largely  coloured  by  literary  habits  and 
literary  fashions  that  had  long  passed  away.  The  oddity  of 
the  book  was  a  kind  of  advertisement  to  its  genius,  and  that 
oddity  consisted  in  the  use  of  old  manners  upon  new  things. 
No  analysis  or  account  of  Tristram  Shandy  could  be  given 
which  would  suit  the  present  generation  ;  being,  indeed,  a 
book  without  plan  or  order,  it  is  in  every  generation  unfit 
for  analysis.  This  age  would  not  endure  a  statement  of  the 
most  telling  points,  as  the  writer  thought  them,  and  no  age 
would  like  an  elaborate  plan  of  a  book  in  which  there  is  no 
plan,  in  which  the  detached  remarks  and  separate  scenes 
were  really  meant  to  be  the  whole.  The  notion  that  "  a  plot 
was  to  hang  plums  upon  "  -was  Sterne's  notion  exactly. 

The  real  excellence  of  Sterne  is  single  and  simple ;  the 
defects  are  numberless  and  complicated.  He  excels,  perhaps, 
all  other  writers  in  mere  simple  description  of  common 
sensitive  human  action.  He  places  before  you  in  their  sim- 
plest form  the  elemental  facts  of  human  life ;  he  does  not 
view  them  through  the  intellect,  he  scarcely  views  them 
through  the  imagination ;  he  does  but  reflect  the  unimpaired 
impression  that  the  facts  of  life,  which  do  not  change  from 
age  to  age,  make  on  the  deep  basis  of  human  feeling,  which 
changes  as  little  though  years  go  on.  The  example  we  quoted 
just  now  is  as  good  as  any  other,  though  not  better  than  any 
other.  Our  readers  should  go  back  to  it  again,  or  our  praise 
may  seem  overcharged.  It  is  the  portrait  painting  of  the 
heart.  It  is  as  pure  a  reflection  of  mere  natural  feeling  as 
literatu  has  ever  given,  or  will  ever  give.  The  delineation 
is  nearly  perfect.  Sterne's  feeling  in  his  higher  moments  so 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  295 

much  overpowered  his  intellect,  and  so  directed  his  imagina- 
tion, that  no  intrusive  thought  blemishes,  no  distorting  fancy 
mars,  the  perfection  of  the  representation.  The  disenchant- 
ing facts  which  deface,  the  low  circumstances  which  debase, 
the  simpler  feelings  oftener  than  any  other  feelings,  his  art 
excludes.  The  feeling  which  would  probably  be  coarse  in 
the  reality  is  refined  in  the  picture.  The  unconscious  tact 
of  the  nice  artist  heightens  and  chastens  reality,  but  yet  it 
is  reality  still.  His  mind  was  like  a  pure  lake  of  delicate 
water:  it  reflects  the  ordinary  landscape,  the  rugged  hills, 
the  loose  pebbles,  the  knotted  and  the  distorted  firs,  perfectly 
and  as  they  are,  yet  with  a  charm  and  fascination  that  they 
have  not  in  themselves.  This  is  the  highest  attainment  of 
art,  to  be  at  the  same  time  nature  and  something  more  than 
nature. 

But  here  the  great  excellence  of  Sterne  ends  as  well  as 
begins.  In  Tristram  Shandy  especially  there  are  several 
defects  which,  while  we  are  reading  it,  tease  and  disgust  so 
much  that  we  are  scarcely  willing  even  to  admire  as  we  ought 
to  admire  the  refined  pictures  of  human  emotion.  The  first  of 
these,  and  perhaps  the  worst,  is  the  fantastic  disorder  of  the 
form.  It  is  an  imperative  law  of  the  writing  art,  that  a  book 
should  go  straight  on.  A  great  writer  should  be  able  to  tell 
a  great  meaning  as  coherently  as  a  small  writer  tells  a  small 
meaning.  The  magnitude  of  the  thought  to  be  conveyed, 
the  delicacy  of  the  emotion  to  be  painted,  render  the  intro- 
ductory touches  of  consummate  art  not  of  less  importance, 
but  of  more  importance.  A  great  writer  should  train  the 
mind  of  the  reader  for  his  greatest  things ;  that  is,  by  first 
strokes  and  fitting  preliminaries  he  should  form  and  prepare 
his  mind  for  the  due  appreciation  and  the  perfect  enjoyment 
of  high  creations.  He  should  not  blunder  upon  a  beauty, 
nor,  after  a  great  imaginative  creation,  should  he  at  once  fall 
back  to  bare  prose.  The  high-wrought  feeling  which  a  poet 


296  Literary  Studies. 


excites  should  not  be  turned  out  at  once  and  without  warn- 
ing into  the  discomposing  world.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest 
merits  of  the  greatest  living  writer  of  fiction — of  the  author- 
ess of  Adam  Bede — that  she  never  brings  you  to  anything 
without  preparing  you  for  it ;  she  has  no  loose  lumps  of 
beauty ;  she  puts  in  nothing  at  random  ;  after  her  greatest 
scenes,  too,  a  natural  sequence  of  subordinate  realities  again 
tones  down  the  mind  to  this  sublunary  world.  Her  logical 
style — the  most  logical,  probably,  which  a  woman  ever  wrote 
— aids  in  this  matter  her  natural  sense  of  due  proportion. 
There  is  not  a  space  of  incoherency — not  a  gap.  It  is  not 
natural  to  begin  with  the  point  of  a  story,  and  she  does  not 
begin  with  it.  When  some  great  marvel  has  been  told,  we 
all  wish  to  know  what  came  of  it,  and  she  tells  us.  Her 
natural  way,  as  it  seems  to  those  who  do  not  know  its  rarity, 
of  telling  what  happened  produces  the  consummate  effect  of 
gradual  enchantment  and  as  gradual  disenchantment.  But 
Sterne's  style  is  wwnatural.  He  never  begins  at  the  begin- 
ning and  goes  straight  through  to  the  end.  He  shies  in  a 
beauty  suddenly ;  and  just  when  you  are  affected  he  turns 
round  and  grins  at  it.  "Ah,"  he  says,  "is  it  not  fine?"  And 
then  he  makes  jokes  which  at  that  place  and  at  that  time 
are  out  of  place,  or  passes  away  into  scholastic  or  other 
irrelevant  matter,  which  simply  disgusts  and  disheartens 
those  whom  he  has  just  delighted.  People  excuse  all  this 
irregularity  of  form  by  saying  that  it  was  imitated  from  Rabe- 
lais. But  this  is  nonsense.  Rabelais,  perhaps,  could  not  in 
his  day  venture  to  tell  his  meaning  straight  out ;  at  any  rate, 
he  did  not  tell  it.  Sterne  should  not  have  chosen  a  model  so 
monstrous.  Incoherency  is  not  less  a  defect  because  an  im- 
perfect foreign  writer  once  made  use  of  it.  "  You  may  have, 
sir,  a  reason,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "for  saying  that  two  and 
two  make  five,  but  they  will  still  make  four."1  Just  so,  a 
1  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  chap.  xlix. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray*  '2gJ 


writer  may  have  a  reason  for  selecting  the  defect  of 
incoherency,  but  it  is  a  defect  still.  Sterne's  best  things 
read  best  out  of  his  books — in  Enfield's  Speaker  and  other 
places — and  you  can  say  no  worse  of  any  one  as  a  con- 
tinuous artist. 

Another  most  palpable  defect — especially  palpable  now-a- 
days— in  Tristram  Shandy  is  its  indecency.  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  customary  conventions  of  writing  are  much  altered 
during  the  last  century,  and  much  which  would  formerly 
have  been  deemed  blameless  would  now  be  censured  and  dis- 
liked. The  audience  has  changed  ;  and  decency  is  of  course 
in  part  dependent  on  who  is  within  hearing.  A  divorce  case 
may  be  talked  over  across  a  club-table  with  a  plainness  of 
speech  and  development  of  expression  which  would  be 
indecent  in  a  mixed  party,  and  scandalous  before  young 
ladies.  Now,  a  large  part  of  old  novels  may  very  fairly  be 
called  club-books ;  they  speak  out  plainly  and  simply  the 
notorious  facts  of  the  world,  as  men  speak  of  them  to  men. 
Much  excellent  and  proper  masculine  conversation  is  wholly 
unfit  for  repetition  to  young  girls  ;  and  just  in  the  same  way, 
books  written — as  was  almost  all  old  literature — for  men 
only,  or  nearly  only,  seem  coarse  enough  when  contrasted 
with  novels  written  by  young  ladies  upon  the  subjects  and 
in  the  tone  of  the  drawing-room.  The  change  is  inevitable ; 
as  soon  as  works  of  fiction  are  addressed  to  boys  and  girls, 
they  must  be  fit  for  boys  and  girls;  they  must  deal  with  a 
life  which  is  real  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  which  is  yet  most 
limited  ;  which  deals  with  the  most  passionate  part  of  life, 
and  yet  omits  the  errors  of  the  passions ;  which  aims  at  de- 
scribing men  in  their  relations  to  women,  and  yet  omits  an 
all  but  universal  influence  which  more  or  less  distorts  and 
modifies  all  these  relations. 

As  we  have  said,  the  change  cannot  be  helped..  A  young 
ladies'  literature  must  be  a  limited  and  truncated  literature. 


298  Literary  Studies. 


The  indiscriminate  study  of  human  life  is  not  desirable  for 
them,  either  in  fiction  or  in  reality.  But  the  habitual  formation 
of  a  scheme  of  thought  and  a  code  of  morality  upon  incom- 
plete materials  is  a  very  serious  evil.  The  readers  for 
whose  sake  the  omissions  are  made  cannot  fancy  what  is 
left  out.  Many  a  girl  of  the  present  day  reads  novels,  and 
nothing  but  novels  ;  she  forms  her  mind  by  them,  as  far 
as  she  forms  it  by  reading  at  all ;  even  if  she  reads  a  few 
dull  books,  she  soon  forgets  all  about  them,  and  remembers 
he  novels  only ;  she  is  more  influenced  by  them  than  by 
sermons.  They  form  her  idea  of  the  world,  they  define  her 
taste,  and  modify  her  morality ;  not  so  much  in  explicit 
thought  and  direct  act,  as  unconsciously  and  in  her  floating 
fancy.  How  is  it  possible  to  convince  such  a  girl,  especi- 
ally if  she  is  clever,  that  on  most  points  she  is  all  wrong  ? 
She  has  been  reading  most  excellent  descriptions  of  mere 
society  ;  she  comprehends  those  descriptions  perfectly,  for 
her  own  experience  elucidates  and  confirms  them.  She  has 
a  vivid  picture  of  a  patch  of  life.  Even  if  she  admits  in 
words  that  there  is  something  beyond,  something  of  which 
she  has  no  idea,  she  will  not  admit  it  really  and  in  practice. 
What  she  has  mastered  and  realised  will  incurably  and 
inevitably  overpower  the  unknown  something  of  which  she 
knows  nothing,  can  imagine  nothing,  and  can  make  nothing. 
"  I  am  not  sure,"  said  an  old  lady,  "  but  I  think  it's  the 
novels  that  make  my  girls  so  heady."  It  is  the  novels.  A 
very  intelligent  acquaintance  with  limited  life  makes  them 
think  that  the  world  is  far  simpler  than  it  is,  that  men  are 
easy  to  understand,  "  that  mamma  is  so  foolish  ". 

The  novels  of  the  last  age  have  certainly  not  this  fault. 
They  do  not  err  on  the  side  of  reticence.  A  girl  may  learn 
from  them  more  than  it  is  desirable  for  her  to  know.  But, 
as  we  have  explained,  they  were  meant  for  men  and  not 
for  girls ;  and  if  Tristram  Shandy  had  simply  given  a 


Sterne  and  Thackeray. 


plain  exposition  of  necessary  facts  —  necessary,  that  is,  to 
the  development  of  the  writer's  view  of  the  world,  and  to 
the  telling  of  the  story  in  hand  —  we  should  not  have 
complained  ;  we  should  have  regarded  it  as  the  natural 
product  of  a  now  extinct  society.  But  there  are  most  un- 
mistakable traces  of  "Crazy  Castle"  in  Tristram  Shandy. 
There  is  indecency  for  indecency's  sake.  It  is  made  a  sort 
of  recurring  and  even  permeating  joke  to  mention  things 
which  are  not  generally  mentioned.  Sterne  himself  made 
a  sort  of  defence,  or  rather  denial,  of  this.  He  once  asked 
a  lady  if  she  had  read  Tristram.  "  I  have  not,  Mr. 
Sterne,"  was  the  answer;  "and,  to  be  plain  with  you,  I 
am  informed  it  is  not  proper  for  female  perusal."  "  My 
dear  good  lady,"  said  Sterne,  "do  not  be  gulled  by  such 
stories;  the  book  is  like  your  young  heir  there"  (pointing 
to  a  child  of  three  years  old,  who  was  rolling  on  the  carpet 
in  white  tunics)  :  "  he  shows  at  times  a  good  deal  that  is 
usually  concealed,  but  it  is  all  in  perfect  innocence."  But 
a  perusal  of  Tristram  would  not  make  good  the  plea.  The 
unusual  publicity  of  what  is  ordinarily  imperceptible  is  not 
the  thoughtless  accident  of  amusing  play  ;  it  is  deliberately 
sought  after  as  a  nice  joke  ;  it  is  treated  as  good  in  itself. 

The  indecency  of  Tristram  Shandy  —  at  least  of  the  early 
part,  which  was  written  before  Sterne  had  been  to  France  — 
is  especially  an  offence  against  taste,  because  of  its  ugliness. 
Moral  indecency  is  always  disgusting.  There  certainly  is 
a  sort  of  writing  which  cannot  be  called  decent,  and  which 
describes  a  society  to  the  core  immoral,  which  nevertheless 
is  no  offence  against  art  ;  it  violates  a  higher  code  than 
that  of  taste,  but  it  does  not  violate  the  code  of  taste.  The 
Memoires  de  Grammont  —  hundreds  of  French  memoirs 
about  France  —  are  of  this  kind,  more  or  less.  They  de- 
scribe the  refined,  witty,  elegant  immorality  of  an  idle 
aristocracy.  They  describe  a  life  "  unsuitable  to  such  a 


300  Literary  Studies, 


being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the  present  one,"  in  which 
there  are  no  high  aims,  no  severe  duties,  where  some 
precepts  of  morals  seem  not  so  much  to  be  sometimes 
broken  as  to  be  generally  suspended  and  forgotten  ;  such 
a  life,  in  short,  as  God  has  never  suffered  men  to  lead  on 
this  earth  long,  which  He  has  always  crushed  out  by 
calamity  and  revolution.  This  life,  though  an  offence  in 
morals,  was  not  an  offence  in  taste.  It  was  an  elegant, 
a  pretty  thing  while  it  lasted.  Especially  in  enhancing 
description,  where  the  alloy  of  life  may  be  omitted,  where 
nothing  vulgar  need  be  noticed,  where  everything  elegant 
may  be  neatly  painted, — such  a  world  is  elegant  enough. 
Morals  and  policy  must  decide  how  far  such  delineations 
are  permissible  or  expedient ;  but  the  art  of  beauty — 
art-criticism — has  no  objection  to  them.  They  are  pretty 
paintings  of  pretty  objects,  and  that  is  all  it  has  to  say. 
They  may  very  easily  do  harm  ;  if  generally  read  among 
the  young  of  the  middle  class,  they  would  be  sure  to  do 
harm  ;  they  would  teach  not  a  few  to  aim  at  a  sort  of 
refinement  denied  them  by  circumstances,  and  to  neglect 
the  duties  allotted  them ;  it  would  make  shopmen  "  bad 
imitations  of  polished  ungodliness,"  and  also  bad  shopmen. 
But  still,  though  it  would  in  such  places  be  noxious  litera- 
ture, in  itself  it  would  be  pretty  literature.  The  critic  must 
praise  it,  though  the  moralist  must  condemn  it,  and  perhaps 
the  politician  forbid  it. 

But  Tristram  Shandy's  indecency  is  the  very  opposite  to 
this  refined  sort.  It  consists  in  allusions  to  certain  insepar- 
able accompaniments  of  actual  life  which  are  not  beautiful, 
which  can  never  be  made  interesting,  which  would,  if  they 
were  decent,  be  dull  and  uninteresting.  There  is,  it  appears, 
a  certain  excitement  in  putting  such  matters  into  a  book : 
there  is  a  minor  exhilaration  even  in  petty  crime.  At  first 
such  things  look  so  odd  in  print  that  you  go  on  reading 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  301 

them  to  see  what  they  look  like ;  but  you  soon  give  up. 
What  is  disenchanting  or  even  disgusting  in  reality  does 
not  become  enchanting  or  endurable  in  delineation.  You 
are  more  angry  at  it  in  literature  than  in  life ;  there  is  much 
which  is  barbarous  and  animal  in  reality  that  we  could  wish 
away ;  we  endure  it  because  we  cannot  help  it,  because  we 
did  not  make  it  and  cannot  alter  it,  because  it  is  an  insepar- 
able part  of  this  inexplicable  world.  But  why  we  should 
put  this  coarse  alloy,  this  dross  of  life,  into  the  optional 
world  of  literature,  which  we  can  make  as  we  please,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  The  needless  introduction  of  accessory 
ugliness  is  always  a  sin  in  art,  and  it  is  not  at  all  less  so 
when  such  ugliness  is  disgusting  and  improper.  Tristram 
Shandy  is  incurably  tainted  with  a  pervading  vice ;  it  dwells 
at  length  on,  it  seeks  after,  it  returns  to,  it  gloats  over,  the 
most  unattractive  part  of  the  world. 

There  is  another  defect  in  Tristram  Shandy  which  would 
of  itself  remove  it  from  the  list  of  first-rate  books,  even  if 
those  which  we  have  mentioned  did  not  do  so.  It  contains 
eccentric  characters  only.  Some  part  of  this  defect  may  be 
perhaps  explained  by  one  peculiarity  of  its  origin.  Sterne 
was  so  sensitive  to  the  picturesque  parts  of  life,  that  he 
wished  to  paint  the  picturesque  parts  of  the  people  he  hated. 
Country  towns  in  those  days  abounded  in  odd  characters. 
They  were  out  of  the  way  of  the  great  opinion  of  the  world, 
and  shaped  themselves  to  little  opinions  of  their  own.  They 
regarded  the  customs  which  the  place  had  inherited  as  the 
customs  which  were  proper  for  it,  and  which  it  would  be 
foolish,  if  not  wicked,  to  try  to  change.  This  gave  English 
country  life  a  motley  picturesqueness  then,  which  it  wants 
now,  when  London  ideas  shoot  out  every  morning,  and 
carry  on  the  wings  of  the  railroad  a  uniform  creed  to  each 
cranny  of  the  kingdom,  north  and  south,  east  and  west. 
These  little  public  opinions  of  little  places  wanted,  too,  the 


302  Literary  Studies. 


crushing  power  of  the  great  public  opinion  of  our  own  day ; 
at  the  worst,  a  man  could  escape  from  them  into  some 
different  place  which  had  customs  and  doctrines  that  suited 
him  better.  We  now  may  fly  into  another  "city,"  but  it  is 
all  the  same  Roman  empire ;  the  same  uniform  justice,  the 
one  code  of  heavy  laws,  presses  us  down  and  makes  us — the 
sensible  part  of  us  at  least — as  like  other  people  as  we  can 
make  ourselves.  The  public  opinion  of  county  towns  yielded 
soon  to  individual  exceptions  ;  it  had  not  the  confidence  in 
itself  which  the  opinion  of  each  place  now  receives  from  the 
accordant  and  simultaneous  echo  of  a  hundred  places.  If  a 
man  chose  to  be  queer,  he  was  bullied  for  a  year  or  two,  then 
it  was  settled  that  he  was  "  queer  "  ;  that  was  the  fact  about 
him,  and  must  be  accepted.  In  a  year  or  so  he  became  an 
"  institution  "  of  the  place,  and  the  local  pride  would  have 
been  grieved  if  he  had  amended  the  oddity  which  suggested 
their  legends  and  added  a  flavour  to  their  life.  Of  course,  if 
a  man  was  rich  and  influential,  he  might  soon  disregard  the 
mere  opinion  of  the  petty  locality.  Every  place  has  wonder- 
ful traditions  of  old  rich  men  who  did  exactly  as  they  pleased, 
because  they  could  set  at  naught  the  opinions  of  the  neigh- 
bours, by  whom  they  were  feared  ;  and  who  did  not,  as  now, 
dread  the  unanimous  conscience  which  does  not  fear  even  a 
squire  of  £2000  a  year,  or  a  banker  of  £8000,  because  it  is 
backed  by  the  wealth  of  London  and  the  magnitude  of  all 
the  country.  There  is  little  oddity  in  county  towns  now ; 
they  are  detached  scraps  of  great  places ;  but  in  Sterne's 
time  there  was  much,  and  he  used  it  unsparingly. 

Much  of  the  delineation  is  of  the  highest  merit.  Sterne 
knew  how  to  describe  eccentricity,  for  he  showed  its  relation 
to  our  common  human  nature :  he  showed  how  we  were 
related  to  it,  how  in  some  sort  and  in  some  circumstances 
we  might  ourselves  become  it.  He  reduced  the  abnormal 
jormation  to  the  normal  rules.  Except  upon  this  condition, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  303 

eccentricity  is  no  fit  subject  for  literary  art.  Every  one  must 
have  known  characters  which,  if  they  were  put  down  in 
books,  barely  and  as  he  sees  them,  would  seem  monstrous 
and  disproportioned — which  would  disgust  all  readers — 
which  every  critic  would  term  unnatural.  While  characters 
are  monstrous,  they  should  be  kept  out  of  books ;  they  are 
ugly  unintelligibilities,  foreign  to  the  realm  of  true  art.  But 
as  soon  as  they  can  be  explained  to  us,  as  soon  as  they  are 
shown  in  their  union  with,  in  their  outgrowth  from,  common 
human  nature,  they  are  the  best  subjects  for  great  art — for 
they  are  new  subjects.  They  teach  us,  not  the  old  lesson 
which  our  fathers  knew,  but  a  new  lesson  which  will  please 
us  and  make  us  better  than  they.  Hamlet  is  an  eccentric 
character,  one  of  the  most  eccentric  in  literature;  but 
because,  by  the  art  of  the  poet,  we  are  made  to  understand 
that  he  is  a  possible,  a  vividly  possible  man,  he  enlarges 
our  conceptions  of  human  nature;  he  takes  us  out  of  the 
bounds  of  commonplace.  He  "  instructs  us  by  means  of 
delight".  Sterne  does  this  too.  Mr.  Shandy,  Uncle  Toby, 
Corporal  Trim,  Mrs.  Shandy — for  in  strictness  she  too  is 
eccentric  from  her  abnormal  commonplaceness — are  beings 
of  which  the  possibility  is  brought  home  to  us,  which  we 
feel  we  could  under  circumstances  and  by  influences 
become ;  which,  though  contorted  and  twisted,  are  yet  spun 
out  of  the  same  elementary  nature,  the  same  thread  as  we 
are.  Considering  how  odd  these  characters  are,  the  success 
of  Sterne  is  marvellous,  and  his  art  in  this  respect  consum- 
mate. But  yet  on  a  point  most  nearly  allied  it  is  very 
faulty.  Though  each  individual  character  is  shaded  off  into 
human  nature,  the  whole  is  not  shaded  off  into  the  world. 
This  society  of  originals  and  oddities  is  left  to  stand  by 
itself,  as  if  it  were  a  natural  and  ordinary  society, — a  society 
easily  conceivable  and  needing  no  explanation.  Such  is 
not  the  manner  of  the  great  masters  ;  in  their  best  works 


304  Literary  Studies. 


a  constant  atmosphere  of  half-commonplace  personages 
surrounds  and  shades  off,  illustrates  and  explains,  every 
central  group  of  singular  persons. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  judgment  of  criticism  on 
Tristram  Shandy  is  concise  and  easy.  It  is  immortal 
because  of  certain  scenes  suggested  by  Sterne's  curious 
experience,  detected  by  his  singular  sensibility,  and  height- 
ened by  his  delineative  and  discriminative  imagination.  It 
is  defective  because  its  style  is  fantastic,  its  method  illogical 
and  provoking ;  because  its  indecency  is  of  the  worst  sort 
as  far  as  in  such  matters  an  artistic  judgment  can  speak  of 
worst  and  best ;  because  its  world  of  characters  forms  an 
incongruous  group  of  singular  persons  utterly  dissimilar  to, 
and  irreconcilable  with,  the  world  in  which  we  live.  It  is  a 
great  work  of  art,  but  of  barbarous  art.  Its  mirth  is 
boisterous.  It  is  provincial.  It  is  redolent  of  an  inferior 
society ;  of  those  who  think  crude  animal  spirits  in  them- 
selves delightful ;  who  do  not  know  that,  without  wit  to 
point  them,  or  humour  to  convey  them,  they  are  disagree- 
able to  others ;  who  like  disturbing  transitions,  blank  pages, 
and  tricks  of  style ;  who  do  not  know  that  a  simple  and 
logical  form  of  expression  is  the  most  effective,  if  not  the 
easiest — the  least  laborious  to  readers,  if  not  always  the 
most  easily  attained  by  writers. 

The  oddity  of  Tristram  Shandy  was,  however,  a  great 
aid  to  its  immediate  popularity.  If  an  author  were  to  stand 
on  his  head  now  and  then  in  Cheapside,  his  eccentricity 
would  bring  him  into  contact  with  the  police,  but  it  would 
advertise  his  writings;  they  would  sell  better:  people  would 
like  to  see  what  was  said  by  a  great  author  who  was  so  odd 
as  to  stand  so.  Sterne  put  his  eccentricity  into  his  writings, 
and  therefore  came  into  collision  with  the  critics ;  but  he 
attained  the  same  end.  His  book  sold  capitally.  As  with 
all  popular  authors,  he  went  to  London ;  he  was  feted. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  305 

"  The  man  Sterne,"  growled  Dr.  Johnson,  "  has  dinner 
engagements  for  three  months."  The  upper  world — ever 
desirous  of  novelty,  ever  tired  of  itself,  ever  anxious  to  be 
amused — was  in  hopes  of  a  new  wit.  It  naturally  hoped 
that  the  author  of  Tristram  Shandy  would  talk  well,  and  it 
sent  for  him  to  talk. 

He  did  talk  well,  it  appears,  though  not  always  very 
correctly,  and  never  very  clerically.  His  appearance  was 
curious,  but  yet  refined.  Eager  eyes,  a  wild  look,  a  long 
lean  frame,  and  what  he  called  a  cadaverous  bale  of  goods 
for  a  body,  made  up  an  odd  exterior,  which  attracted  notice, 
and  did  not  repel  liking.  He  looked  like  a  scarecrow  with 
bright  eyes.  With  a  random  manner,  but  not  without  a 
nice  calculation,  he  discharged  witticisms  at  London  parties. 
His  keen  nerves  told  him  which  were  fit  witticisms ;  they 
took,  and  he  was  applauded. 

He  published  some  sermons  too.  That  tolerant  age 
liked,  it  is  instructive  as  well  as  amusing  to  think,  sermons 
by  the  author  of  Tristram  Shandy.  People  wonder  at  the 
rise  of  Methodism  ;  but  ought  they  to  wonder  ?  If  a  clergy- 
man publishes  his  sermons  because  he  has  written  an  in- 
decent novel — a  novel  which  is  purely  pagan — which  is 
outside  the  ideas  of  Christianity,  whose  author  can  scarcely 
have  been  inside  of  them — if  a  man  so  made  and  so  circum- 
stanced is  as  such  to  publish  Christian  sermons,  surely 
Christianity  is  a  joke  and  a  dream.  Wesley  was  right  in 
this  at  least ;  if  Christianity  be  true,  the  upper-class  life  of 
the  last  century  was  based  on  rotten  falsehood.  A  world 
which  is  really  secular,  but  which  professes  to  be  Christian, 
is  the  worst  of  worlds. 

The  only  point  in  which  Sterne  resembles  a  clergyman 

of  our  own  time  is,  that  he  lost  his  voice.     That  peculiar 

affection  of  the  chest  and  throat,  which  is  hardly  known 

among   barristers,   but  which    inflicts  such   suffering  upon 

VOL.  n.  20 


306  Literary  Studies. 


parsons,  attacked  him  also.  Sterne  too,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, went  abroad  for  it.  He  "  spluttered  French,"  he 
tells  us,  with  success  in  Paris;  the  accuracy  of  the  grammar 
some  phrases  in  his  letters  would  lead  us  to  doubt ;  but  few, 
very  few  Yorkshire  parsons  could  then  talk  French  at  all, 
and  there  was  doubtless  a  fine  tact  and  sensibility  in  what 
he  said.  A  literary  phenomenon  wishing  to  enjoy  society, 
and  able  to  amuse  society,  has  ever  been  welcome  in  the 
Parisian  world.  After  Paris,  Sterne  went  to  the  south  of 
France,  and  on  to  Italy,  lounging  easily  in  pretty  places, 
and  living  comfortably,  as  far  as  one  can  see,  upon  the 
profits  of  Tristram  Shandy.  Literary  success  has  seldom 
changed  more  suddenly  and  completely  the  course  of  a 
man's  life.  For  years  Sterne  resided  in  a  country  parson- 
age, and  the  sources  of  his  highest  excitement  were  a 
country  town  full  of  provincial  oddities,  and  a  "  Crazy 
Castle "  full  of  the  license  and  the  whims  of  a  country 
squire.  On  a  sudden  London,  Paris,  and  Italy  were  opened 
to  him.  From  a  few  familiar  things  he  was  suddenly 
transferred  to  many  unfamiliar  things.  He  was  equal  to 
them,  though  the  change  came  so  suddenly  in  middle  life — 
though  the  change  from  a  secluded  English  district  to  the 
great  and  interesting  scenes  was  far  greater,  far  fuller  of 
unexpected  sights  and  unforeseen  phenomena,  than  it  can 
be  now — when  travelling  is  common — when  the  newspaper 
is  "abroad" — when  every  one  has  in  his  head  some  feeble 
image  of  Europe  and  the  world.  Sterne  showed  the  deli- 
cate docility  which  belongs  to  a  sensitive  and  experiencing 
nature.  He  understood  and  enjoyed  very  much  of  this  new 
and  strange  life,  if  not  the  whole. 

The  proof  of  this  remains  written  in  the  Sentimental 
Journey.  There  is  no  better  painting  of  first  and  ease 
impressions  than  that  book.  After  all  which  has  been 
written  on  the  ancien  regime,  an  Englishman  at  least  will 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  307 

feel  a  fresh  instruction  on  reading  these  simple  observations. 
They  are  instructive  because  of  their  simplicity.  The  old 
world  at  heart  was  not  like  that ;  there  were  depths  and 
realities,  latent  forces  and  concealed  results,  which  were 
hidden  from  Sterne's  eye,  which  it  would  have  been  quite 
out  of  his  way  to  think  of  or  observe.  But  the  old  world 
seemed  like  that.  This  was  the  spectacle  of  it  as  it  was 
seen  by  an  observing  stranger ;  and  we  take  it  up,  not  to 
know  what  was  the  truth,  but  to  know  what  we  should  have 
thought  to  be  the  truth  if  we  had  lived  in  those  times. 
People  say  Eothen  is  not  like  the  real  East ;  very  likely  it  is 
not,  but  it  is  like  what  an  imaginative  young  Englishman 
would  think  the  East.  Just  so,  the  Sentimental  Journey  is 
not  the  true  France  of  the  old  monarchy,  but  it  is  exactly 
what  an  observant  quick-eyed  Englishman  might  fancy  that 
France  to  be.  This  has  given  it  popularity  ;  this  still  makes 
it  a  valuable  relic  of  the  past.  It  is  not  true  to  the  outward 
nature  of  real  life,  but  it  is  true  to  the  reflected  image  of 
that  life  in  an  imaginative  and  sensitive  man. 

Here  is  the  actual  description  of  the  old  chivalry  of 
France;  the  "cheap  defence  of  nations,''1  as  Mr.  Burke 
called  it  a  little  while  afterwards  : — 

"  When  states  and  empires  have  their  periods  of  declension,  and  feel 
in  their  turns  what  distress  and  poverty  is — I  stop  not  to  tell  the  causes 

which  gradually  brought  the  house  d'E in  Brittany  into  decay.     The 

Marquis  d'E — —  had  fought  up  against  his  condition  with  great  firmness ; 
wishing  to  preserve,  and  still  show  to  the  world,  some  little  fragments  of 
what  his  ancestors  had  been — their  indiscretions  had  put  it  out  of  his 
power.  There  was  enough  left  for  the  little  exigencies  of  obscurity. 
But  he  had  two  boys  who  look'd  up  to  him  for  light — he  thought  they 
deserved  it.  He  had  tried  his  sword — it  could  not  open  the  way — the 
mounting  was  too  expensive — and  simple  economy  was  not  a  match  for 
it — there  was  no  resource  but  commerce. 

^Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  paragraph  on  Marie 
Antoinette.  (Forrest  Morgan.) 


308  Literary  Studies* 


"  In  any  other  province  in  France,  save  Brittany,  this  was  smiting 
the  root  for  ever  of  the  little  tree  his  pride  and  affection  wish'd  to  see 
reblossom.  But  in  Brittany,  there  being  a  provision  for  this,  he  avail'd 
himself  of  it ;  arid  taking  an  occasion  when  the  states  were  assembled  at 
Rennes,  the  Marquis,  attended  with  his  two  boys,  entered  the  court ; 
and  having  pleaded  the  right  of  an  ancient  law  of  the  duchy,  which, 
though  seldom  claim'd,  he  said,  was  no  less  in  force,  he  took  his  sword 
from  his  side — Here,  said  he,  take  it ;  and  be  trusty  guardians  of  it,  till 
better  times  put  me  in  condition  to  reclaim  it. 

"  The  president  accepted  the  Marquis's  sword — he  stayed  a  few 
minutes  to  see  it  deposited  in  the  archives  of  his  house — and  departed. 

"  The  Marquis  and  his  whole  family  embarked  the  next  day  for 
Martinico,  and  in  about  nineteen  or  twenty  years  of  successful  application 
to  business,  with  some  unlook'd-for  bequests  from  distant  branches  of 
his  house,  return'd  home  to  reclaim  his  nobility  and  to  support  it. 

"  It  was  an  incident  of  good  fortune  which  will  never  happen  to  any 
traveller  but  a  sentimental  one,  that  I  should  be  at  Rennes  at  the  very 
time  of  this  solemn  requisition  :  I  call  it  solemn — it  was  so  to  me. 

"  The  Marquis  enter'd  the  court  with  his  whole  family :  he  sup- 
ported his  lady — his  eldest  son  supported  his  sister,  and  his  youngest 
was  at  the  other  extreme  of  the  line  next  his  mother — he  put  his 
handkerchief  to  his  face  twice — 

" — There  was  a  dead  silence.  When  the  Marquis  had  approach'd 
within  six  paces  of  the  tribunal,  he  gave  the  Marchioness  to  his  youngest 
son,  and  advancing  three  steps  before  his  family — he  reclaim'd  his  sword. 
His  sword  was  given  him  ;  and  the  moment  he  got  it  into  his  hand 
he  drew  it  almost  out  of  the  scabbard — 'twas  the  shining  face  of  a  friend 
he  had  once  given  up — he  looked  attentively  along  it,  beginning  at  the 
hilt,  as  if  to  see  whether  it  was  the  same — when  observing  a  little  rust 
which  it  had  contracted  near  the  point,  he  brought  it  near  his  eye,  and 
bending  his  head  down  over  it — I  think  I  saw  a  tear  fall  upon  the  place  ; 
I  could  not  be  deceived  by  what  followed. 

" '  I  shall  find,'  said  he,  '  some  other  way  to  get  it  off.' 

"When  the  Marquis  had  said  this,  he  return'd  his  sword  into  its 
scabbard,  made  a  bow  to  the  guardians  of  it — and  with  his  wife  and 
daughter,  and  his  two  sons  following  him,  walk'd  out. 

"  O  how  I  envied  him  his  feelings  !  " 1 

It  shows  a  touching  innocence  of  the  imagination  to 
1  Sentimental  Journey,  ii.,  "The  Sword — Rennes". 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  309 

believe — for  probably  Sterne  did  believe — or  to  expect  his 
readers  to  believe,  in  a  noblesse  at  once  so  honourable  and 
so  theatrical. 

In  two  points  the  Sentimental  Journey,  viewed  with  the 
critic's  eye,  and  as  a  mere  work  of  art,  is  a  great  improve- 
ment upon  Tristram  Shandy.  The  style  is  simpler  and 
better  ;  it  is  far  more  connected;  it  does  not  jump  about,  or 
leave  a  topic  because  it  is  interesting ;  it  does  not  worry  the 
reader  with  fantastic  transitions,  with  childish  contrivances 
and  rhetorical  intricacies.  Highly  elaborate  the  style  cer- 
tainly is,  and  in  a  certain  sense  artificial  ;  it  is  full  of  nice 
touches,  which  must  have  come  only  upon  reflection — a 
careful  polish  and  judicious  enhancement,  in  which  the  critic 
sees  many  a  trace  of  time  and  toil.  But  a  style  delicately 
adjusted  and  exquisitely  polished  belongs  to  such  a  subject. 
Sterne  undertook  to  write,  not  of  the  coarse  business  of  life 
— very  strong  common  sort  of  words  are  best  for  that — not 
even  of  interesting  outward  realities,  which  may  be  best 
described  in  a  nice  and  simple  style,  but  of  the  passing 
moods  of  human  nature,  of  the  impressions  which  a  sensitive 
nature  receives  from  the  world  without ;  and  it  is  only  the 
nicest  art  and  the  most  dexterous  care  which  can  fit  an 
obtuse  language  to  such  fine  employment.  How  language 
was  first  invented  and  made  we  may  not  know ;  but  beyond 
doubt  it  was  shaped  and  fashioned  into  its  present  state  by 
common  ordinary  men  and  women  using  it  for  common  and 
ordinary  purposes.  They  wanted  a  carving-knife,  not  a  razor 
or  lancet.  And  those  great  artists  who  have  to  use  language 
for  more  exquisite  purposes,  who  employ  it  to  describe 
changing  sentiments  and  momentary  fancies  and  the 
fluctuating  and  indefinite  inner  world,  must  use  curious 
nicety,  and  hidden  but  effectual  artifice,  else  they  cannot 
duly  punctuate  their  thoughts,  and  slice  the  fine  edges  of 
their  reflections,  A  hair's-breadth  is  as  important  to  them 


3io  Literary  Studies. 


as  a  yard's-breadth  to  a  common  workman.  Sterne's  style 
has  been  criticised  as  artificial ;  but  it  is  justly  and  rightly 
artificial,  because  language  used  in  its  natural  and  common 
mode  was  not  framed  to  delineate,  cannot  delineate,  the 
delicate  subjects  with  which  he  occupies  himself. 

That  contact  with  the  world,  and  with  the  French  world 
especially,  should  teach  Sterne  to  abandon  the  arbitrary  and 
fantastic  structure  of  Tristram  Shandy  is  most  natural. 
French  prose  may  be  unreasonable  in  its  meaning,  but  is 
ever  rational  in  its  structure  ;  it  is  logic  itself.  It  will  not 
endure  that  the  reader's  mind  should  be  jarred  by  rough 
transitions,  or  distracted  by  irrelevant  oddities.  Antics  in 
style  are  prohibited  by  its  severe  code,  just  as  eccentricities 
in  manner  are  kept  down  by  the  critical  tone  of  a  fastidious 
society.  In  a  barbarous  country  oddity  may  be  attractive  ; 
in  the  great  world  it  never  is,  except  for  a  moment ;  it  is  on 
trial  to  see  whether  it  is  really  oddity,  to  see  if  it  does  not 
contain  elements  which  may  be  useful  to,  which  may  be 
naturalised  in,  society  at  large.  But  inherent  eccentricity, 
oddity  pur  et  simple,  is  immiscible  in  the  great  ocean  of 
universal  thought ;  it  is  apart  from  it,  even  when  it  floats  in 
and  is  contained  in  it ;  very,  very  soon  it  is  cast  out  from 
the  busy  waters,  and  left  alone  upon  the  beach.  Sterne  had 
the  sense  to  be  taught  by  the  sharp  touch  of  the  world  ;  he 
threw  aside  the  "  player's  garb"  which  he  had  been  tempted 
to  assume.  He  discarded  too,  as  was  equally  natural,  the 
ugly  indecency  of  Tristram  Shandy.  We  will  not  undertake 
to  defend  the  morality  of  certain  scenes  in  the  Sentimental 
Journey ;  there  are  several  which  might  easily  do  much 
harm  ;  but  there  is  nothing  displeasing  to  the  natural  man 
in  them.  They  are  nice  enough  ;  to  those  whose  aesthetic 
nature  has  not  been  laid  waste  by  their  moral  nature,  they 
are  attractive.  They  have  a  dangerous  prettiness,  which 
may  easily  incite  to  practical  evil,  but  in  itself,  and  separated 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  311 

from  its  censurable  consequences,  such  prettiness  is  an 
artistic  perfection.  It  was  natural  that  the  aristocratic  world 
should  easily  teach  Sterne  that  separation  between  the  laws 
of  beauty  and  the  laws  of  morality  which  has  been  familiar 
to  it  during  many  ages — which  makes  so  much  of  its 
essence. 

Mrs.  Sterne  did  not  prosper  all  this  time.  She  went 
abroad  and  stayed  at  Montpellier  with  her  husband ;  but  it 
is  not  wonderful  that  a  mere  "  wife,"  taken  out  of  Yorkshire, 
should  be  unfit  for  the  great  world.  The  domestic  ap- 
pendices of  men  who  rise  much  hardly  ever  suit  the  high 
places  at  which  they  arrive.  Mrs.  Sterne  was  no  exception. 
She  seems  to  have  been  sensible,  but  it  was  domestic  sense. 
It  was  of  the  small  world,  small  ;  it  was  fit  to  regulate  the 
Yorkshire  parsonage,  it  was  suitable  .to  a  small  menage 
even  at  Montpellier.  But  there  was  a  deficiency  in  genera 
mind.  She  did  not,  we  apprehend,  comprehend  or  appreci- 
ate the  new  thoughts  and  feelings  which  a  new  and  great 
experience  had  awakened  in  her  husband's  mind.  His  mind 
moved,  but  hers  could  not ;  she  was  anchored,  but  he  was 
at  sea. 

To  fastidious  writers  who  will  only  use  very  dignified 
words,  there  is  much  difficulty  in  describing  Sterne's  life  in 
his  celebrity.  But  to  humbler  persons,  who  can  only  de- 
scribe the  things  of  society  in  the  words  of  society,  the  case 
is  simple.  Sterne  was  "  an  old  flirt ".  These  are  short  and 
expressive  words,  and  they  tell  the  whole  truth.  There  is 
no  good  reason  to  suspect  his  morals,  but  he  dawdled  about 
pretty  women.  He  talked  at  fifty  with  the  admiring  tone 
of  twenty  ;  pretended  to  "freshness"  of  feeling;  though  he 
had  become  mature,  did  not  put  away  immature  things. 
That  he  had  any  real  influence  over  women  is  very  unlikely  ; 
he  was  a  celebrity,  and  they  liked  to  exhibit  him  ;  he  was 
amusing,  and  they  liked  him  to  amuse  them.  But  they 


312  Literary  Studies. 


doubtless  felt  that  he  too  was  himself  a  joke.  Women 
much  respect  real  virtue  ;  they  much  admire  strong  and 
successful  immorality  ;  but  they  neither  admire  nor  respect 
the  timid  age  which  affects  the  forms  of  vice  without  its  sub- 
stance ;  which  preserves  the  exterior  of  youth,  though  the 
reality  is  departed ;  which  is  insidious  but  not  dangerous, 
sentimental  but  not  passionate.  Of  this  sort  was  Sterne, 
and  he  had  his  reward.  Women  of  the  world  are  willing 
to  accept  any  admiration,  but  this  sort  they  accept  with 
suppressed  and  latent  sarcasm.  They  ridiculed  his  im- 
becility while  they  accepted  his  attentions  and  enjoyed  his 
society. 

Many  men  have  lived  this  life  with  but  minor  penalties, 
and  justly ;  for  though  perhaps  a  feeble  and  contemptible, 
it  is  not  a  bad  or  immoral  life.  But  Sterne  has  suffered  a 
very  severe  though  a  delayed  and  posthumous  penalty.  He 
was  foolish  enough  to  write  letters  to  some  of  his  friends, 
and  after  his  death,  to  get  money,  his  family  published  them. 
This  is  the  sort  of  thing : — 

"  Eliza  will  receive  my  books  with  this.  The  sermons  came  all  hot 
from  the  heart :  I  wish  that  I  could  give  them  any  title  to  be  offered 
to  yours. — The  others  came  from  the  head — I  am  more  indifferent  about 
their  reception. 

"I  know  not  how  it  comes  about,  but  I  am  half  in  love  with  you 
— I  ought  to  be  wholly  so ;  lor  I  never  valued  (or  saw  more  good 
qualities  to  value)  or  thought  more  of  one  of  your  sex  than  of  you ; 
so  adieu.  "  Yours  faithfully, 

"  if  not  affectionately, 

"  L.  STERNE.' 

"  I  cannot  rest,  Eliza,  though  I  shall  call  on  you  at  half-past  twelve, 
till  I  know  how  you  do. — May  thy  dear  face  smile,  as  thou  risest,  like 
the  sun  of  this  morning.  I  was  much  grieved  to  hear  of  your  alarming 
indisposition  yesterday ;  and  disappointed  too,  at  not  being  let  in. 
Remember,  my  dear,  that  a  friend  has  the  same  right  as  a  physician. 
The  etiquettes  of  this  town  (you'll  say)  say  otherwise, — No  matter  J 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  313 

Delicacy  and  propriety  do  not  always  consist  in  observing  their  frigid 
doctrines. 

"  I  am  going  out  to  breakfast,  but  shall  be  at  my  lodgings  by  eleven, 
when  I  hope  to  read  a  single  line  under  thy  own  hand,  that  thou  art 
better,  and  wilt  be  glad  to  see  thy  Bramin." 

This  Eliza  was  a  Mrs.  Draper,  the  wife  of  a  judge  in 
India,  "  much  respected  in  that  part  of  the  world ".  We 
know  little  of  Eliza,  except  that  there  is  a  stone  in  Bristol 
cathedral — 

SACRED 
TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

MRS.  ELIZABETH  DRAPER, 

IN    WHOM 
GENIUS    AND    BENEVOLENCE 

WERE    UNITED. 
SHE    DIED   AUGUST    3,   1778,  AGED    35. 

Let    us    hope   she   possessed,    in   addition   to   genius   and 
benevolence,  the  good  sense  to  laugh  at  Sterne's  letters. 

In  truth,  much  of  the  gloss  and  delicacy  of  Sterne's 
pagan  instinct  had  faded  away  by  this  time.  He  still 
retained  his  fine  sensibility,  his  exquisite  power  of  entering 
into  and  of  delineating  plain  human  nature.  But  the  world 
bad  produced  its  inevitable  effect  on  that  soft  and  voluptuous 
disposition.  It  is  not,  as  we  have  said,  that  he  was  guilty 
of  grave  offences  or  misdeeds  ;  he  made  what  he  would 
have  called  a  "  splutter  of  vice,"  but  he  would  seem  to  have 
committed  very  little.  Yet,  as  with  most  minds  which 
have  exempted  themselves  from  rigid  principle,  there  was  a 
diffused  texture  of  general  laxity.  The  fibre  had  become 
imperfect ;  the  moral  constitution  was  impaired ;  the  high 
colour  of  rottenness  had  come  at  last  out,  and  replaced  the 


314  Literary  Studies. 


delicate  bloom  and  softness  of  the  early  fruit.  There  is  no 
need  to  write  commonplace  sermons  on  an  ancient  text. 
The  beauty  and  charm  of  natural  paganism  will  not  endure 
the  stress  and  destruction  of  this  rough  and  complicated 
world.  An  instinctive  purity  will  preserve  men  for  a  briel 
time,  but  hardly  through  a  long  and  varied  life  of  threescore 
and  ten  years. 

Sterne,  however,  did  not  live  so  long.  In  1768  he  came 
to  London  for  the  last  time,  and  enjoyed  himself  much.  He 
dined  with  literary  friends  and  supped  with  fast  friends. 
He  liked  both.  But  the  end  was  at  hand.  His  chest  had 
long  been  delicate ;  he  got  a  bad  cold  which  became  a 
pleurisy,  and  died  in  a  London  lodging — a  footman  sent  by 
"  some  gentlemen  who  were  dining,"  and  a  hired  nurse, 
being  the  only  persons  present.  His  family  were  away  ; 
and  he  had  devoted  himself  to  intellectual  and  luxurious  en- 
joyments, which  are  at  least  as  sure  to  make  a  lonely  death- 
bed as  a  refined  and  cultivated  life.  "  Self-schooled,  self- 
scanned,  self-honoured,  self-secure,"1  a  man  may  perhaps 
live,  but  even  so  by  himself  he  will  be  sure  to  die.  For 
self-absorbed  men  the  world  at  large  cares  little  ;  as  soon  as 
they  cease  to  amuse,  or  to  be  useful,  it  flings  them  aside, 
and  they  die  alone.  Even  Sterne's  grave,  they  say,  was  so 
obscure  and  neglected  that  the  corpse-stealers  ventured  to 
open  it,  and  his  body  was  dissected  without  being  recognised. 
The  life  of  literary  men  is  often  a  kind  of  sermon  in  itself; 
for  the  pursuit  of  fame,  when  it  is  contrasted  with  the  grave 
realities  of  life,  seems  more  absurd  and  trifling  than  most 
pursuits,  and  to  leave  less  behind  it.  Mere  amusers  are 
never  respected.  It  would  be  harsh  to  call  Sterne  a  mere 
amuser,  he  is  much  more ;  but  so  the  contemporary  world 
regarded  him.  They  laughed  at  his  jests,  disregarded  his 
death-bed,  and  neglected  his  grave. 

Arnold;  "  Sonnet  to  Shakespeare  ", 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  315 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  there  in  such  a  career,  or  such 
a  character  as  this,  to  remind  us  of  the  great  writer  whom 
we  have  just  lost  ?  In  externals  there  seems  little  resem- 
blance, or  rather  there  seems  to  be  great  contrast.  On  the 
one  side  a  respected  manhood,  a  long  industry,  an  honoured 
memory ;  on  the  other  hand  a  life  lax,  if  not  dissolute,  little 
labour,  and  a  dishonoured  grave.  Mr.  Thackeray,  too,  has 
written  a  most  severe  criticism  on  Sterne's  character.  Can 
we,  then,  venture  to  compare  the  two  ?  We  do  so  venture  ; 
and  we  allege,  and  that  in  spite  of  many  superficial  differ- 
ences, that  there  was  one  fundamental  and  ineradicable 
resemblance  between  the  two. 

Thackeray,  like  Sterne,  looked  at  everything — at  nature, 
at  life,  at  art — from  a  sensitive  aspect.  His  mind  was,  to 
some  considerable  extent,  like  a  woman's  mind.  It  could 
comprehend  abstractions  when  they  were  unrolled  and 
explained  before  it,  but  it  never  naturally  created  them  ; 
never  of  itself,  and  without  external  obligation,  devoted 
itself  to  them.  The  visible  scene  of  life — the  streets,  the 
servants,  the  clubs,  the  gossip,  the  West  End — fastened 
on  his  brain.  These  were  to  him  reality.  They  burnt  in 
upon  his  brain ;  they  pained  his  nerves  ;  their  influence 
reached  him  through  many  avenues,  which  ordinary  men 
do  not  feel  much,  or  to  which  they  are  altogether  impervious. 
He  had  distinct  and  rather  painful  sensations  where  most 
men  have  but  confused  and  blurred  ones.  Most  men  have 
felt  the  instructive  headache,  during  which  they  are  more 
acutely  conscious  than  usual  of  all  which  goes  on  around 
them, — during  which  everything  seems  to  pain  them,  and 
in  which  they  understand  it,  because  it  pains  them,  and 
they  cannot  get  their  imagination  away  from  it.  Thackeray 
had  a  nerve-ache  of  this  sort  always.  He  acutely  felt  every 
possible  passing  fact-— every  trivial  interlude  in  society. 
Hazlitt  used  to  say  of  himself,  and  used  to  say  truly  that, 


316  Literary  Studies. 


he  could  not  enjoy  the  society  in  a  drawing-room  for 
thinking  of  the  opinion  which  the  footman  formed  of  his 
odd  appearance  as  he  went  upstairs.  Thackeray  had  too 
healthy  and  stable  a  nature  to  be  thrown  so  wholly  off  his 
balance ;  but  the  footman's  view  of  life  was  never  out  of 
his  head.  The  obvious  facts  which  suggest  it  to  the  foot- 
man poured  it  in  upon  him ;  he  could  not  exempt  himself 
from  them.  As  most  men  say  that  the  earth  may  go  round 
the  sun,  but  in  fact,  when  we  look  at  the  sun,  we  cannot 
help  believing  it  goes  round  the  earth, — just  so  this  most 
impressible,  susceptible  genius  could  not  help  half  accepting, 
half  believing  the  common  ordinary  sensitive  view  of  life, 
although  he  perfectly  knew  in  his  inner  mind  and  deeper 
nature  that  this  apparent  and  superficial  view  of  life  was 
misleading,  inadequate,  and  deceptive.  He  could  not  help 
seeing  everything,  and  what  he  saw  made  so  near  and 
keen  an  impression  upon  him,  that  he  could  not  again 
exclude  it  from  his  understanding ;  it  stayed  there,  and 
disturbed  his  thoughts. 

If,  he  often  says,  "  people  could  write  about  that  of 
which  they  are  really  thinking,  how  interesting  books  would 
be  !  "  More  than  most  writers  of  fiction,  he  felt  the  diffi- 
culty of  abstracting  his  thoughts  and  imagination  from 
near  facts  which  would  make  themselves  felt.  The  sick 
wife  in  the  next  room,  the  unpaid  baker's  bill,  the  lodging- 
house  keeper  who  doubts  your  solvency ;  these,  and  such 
as  these — the  usual  accompaniments  of  an  early  literary 
life — are  constantly  alluded  to  in  his  writings.  Perhaps 
he  could  never  take  a  grand  enough  view  of  literature,  or 
accept  the  truth  of  "  high  art,"  because  of  his  natural 
tendency  to  this  stern  and  humble  realism.  He  knew  that 
he  was  writing  a  tale  which  would  appear  in  a  green  maga- 
zine (with  others)  on  the  ist  of  March,  and  would  be  paid 
for  perhaps  on  the  nth,  by  which  time,  probably,  "Mr, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  317 

Smith  "  would  have  to  "  make  up  a  sum,"  and  would  again 
present  his  "little  account".  There  are  many  minds 
besides  his  who  feel  an  interest  in  these  realities,  though 
they  yawn  over  "high  art"  and  elaborate  judgments. 

A  painfulness  certainly  clings  like  an  atmosphere  round 
Mr.  Thackeray's  writings,  in  consequence  of  his  inseparable 
and  ever-present  realism.  We  hardly  know  where  it  is, 
yet  we  are  all  conscious  of  it  less  or  more.  A  free  and 
bold  writer,  like  Sir  Walter  Scott,  throws  himself  far  away 
into  fictitious  worlds,  and  soars  there  without  effort,  with- 
out pain,  and  with  unceasing  enjoyment.  You  see  as  it 
were  between  the  lines  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  writings,  that  his 
thoughts  were  never  long  away  from  the  close  proximate 
scene.  His  writings  might  be  better  if  it  had  been  other- 
wise; but  they  would  have  been  less  peculiar,  less  individual; 
they  would  have  wanted  their  character,  their  flavour,  if  he 
had  been  able  while  writing  them  to  forget  for  many 
moments  the  ever-attending,  the  ever-painful  sense  of 
himself. 

Hence  have  arisen  most  of  the  censures  upon  him,  both 
as  he  seemed  to  be  in  society  and  as  he  was  in  his  writings. 
He  was  certainly  uneasy  in  the  common  and  general  world, 
and  it  was  natural  that  he  should  be  so.  The  world  poured 
in  upon  him,  and  inflicted  upon  his  delicate  sensibility  a 
number  of  petty  pains  and  impressions  which  others  do  not 
feel  at  all,  or  which  they  feel  but  very  indistinctly.  As  he 
sat  he  seemed  to  read  off  the  passing  thoughts — the  base, 
common,  ordinary  impressions — of  every  one  else.  Could 
such  a  man  be  at  ease  ?  Could  even  a  quick  intellect  be 
asked  to  set  in  order  with  such  velocity  so  many  data  ? 
Could  any  temper,  however  excellent,  be  asked  to  bear  the 
contemporaneous  influx  of  innumerable  minute  annoyances? 
Men  of  ordinary  nerves  who  feel  a  little  of  the  pains  of 
society,  who  perceive  what  really  passes,  who  are  not 


318  Literary  Studies. 


absorbed  in  the  petty  pleasures  of  sociability,  could  well 
observe  how  keen  was  Thackeray's  sensation  of  common 
events,  could  easily  understand  how  difficult  it  must  have 
been  for  him  to  keep  mind  and  temper  undisturbed  by  a 
miscellaneous  tide  at  once  so  incessant  and  so  forcible. 

He  could  not  emancipate  himself  from  such  impressions 
even  in  a  case  where  most  men  hardly  feel  them.  Many 
people  have — it  is  not  difficult  to  have — some  vague  sensitive 
perception  of  what  is  passing  in  the  minds  of  the  guests,  of 
the  ideas  of  such  as  sit  at  meat ;  but  who  remembers  that 
there  are  also  nervous  apprehensions,  also  a  latent  mental 
life  among  those  who  "stand  and  wait"1 — among  the 
floating  figures  which  pass  and  carve  ?  But  there  was  no 
impression  to  which  Mr.  Thackeray  was  more  constantly 
alive,  or  which  he  was  more  apt  in  his  writings  to  express. 
He  observes : — 

"  Between  me  and  those  fellow-creatures  of  mine  who  are  sitting  in 
the  room  below,  how  strange  and  wonderful  is  the  partition !  We  meet 
at  every  hour  of  the  daylight,  and  are  indebted  to  each  other  for  a 
hundred  offices  of  duty  and  comfort  of  life ;  and  we  live  together  for 
years,  and  don't  know  each  other.  John's  voice  to  me  is  quite  different 
from  John's  voice  when  it  addresses  his  mates  below.  If  I  met  Hannah 
in  the  street  with  a  bonnet  on,  I  doubt  whether  I  should  know  her.  And 
all  these  good  people,  with  whom  I  may  live  for  years  and  years,  have 
cares,  interests,  dear  friends  and  relatives,  mayhap  schemes,  passions, 
longing  hopes,  tragedies  of  their  own,  from  which  a  carpet  and  a  few 
planks  and  beams  utterly  separate  me.  When  we  were  at  the  sea-side, 
and  poor  Ellen  used  to  look  so  pale,  and  run  after  the  postman's  bell, 
and  seize  a  letter  in  a  great  scrawling  hand,  and  read  it,  and  cry  in  a 
corner,  how  should  we  know  that  the  poor  little  thing's  heart  was 
breaking?  She  fetched  the  water,  and  she  smoothed  the  ribbons,  and 
she  laid  out  the  dresses,  and  brought  the  early  cup  of  tea  in  the  morning, 
just  as  if  she  had  had  no  cares  to  keep  her  awake.  Henry  (who  lived  out 
of  the  house)  was  the  servant  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  lived  in  chambers. 
There  was  a  dinner  one  day,  and  Henry  waited  all  through  the  dinner. 

1  Milton,  Sonnet  xix. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  3*9 

The  champagne  was  properly  iced,  the  dinner  was  excellently  served ; 
every  guest  was  attended  to ;  the  dinner  disappeared ;  the  dessert  was 
set ;  the  claret  was  in  perfect  order,  carefully  decanted,  and  more  ready. 
And  then  Henry  said,  '  If  you  please,  sir,  may  I  go  home  ? '  He  had 
received  word  that  his  house  was  on  fire ;  and,  having  seen  through  his 
dinner,  he  wished  to  go  and  look  after  his  children  and  little  sticks  of  fur- 
niture. Why,  such  a  man's  livery  is  a  uniform  of  honour.  The  crest  on 
his  button  is  a  badge  of  bravery." 1 

Nothing  in  itself  could  be  more  admirable  than  this 
instinctive  sympathy  with  humble  persons ;  not  many 
things  are  rarer  than  this  nervous  apprehension  of  what 
humble  persons  think.  Nevertheless  it  cannot,  we  think,  be 
effectually  denied  that  it  coloured  Mr.  Thackerary's  writings 
and  the  more  superficial  part  of  his  character — that  part 
which  was  most  obvious  in  common  and  current  society — 
with  very  considerable  defects.  The  pervading  idea  of  the 
"  Snob  Papers  "  is  too  frequent,  too  recurring,  too  often 
insisted  on,  even  in  his  highest  writings ;  there  was  a  slight 
shade  of  similar  feeling  even  in  his  occasional  society,  and 
though  it  was  certainly  unworthy  of  him,  it  was  exceedingly 
natural  that  it  should  be  so,  with  such  a  mind  as  his  and  in 
a  society  such  as  ours. 

There  are  three  methods  in  which  a  society  may  be  con- 
stituted. There  is  the  equal  system,  which,  with  more  or 
less  of  variation,  prevails  in  France  and  in  the  United 
States.  The  social  presumption  in  these  countries  always 
is  that  every  one  is  on  a  level  with  every  one  else.  In 
America,  the  porter  at  the  station,  the  shopman  at  the 
counter,  the  boots  at  the  hotel,  when  neither  a  Negro  nor  an 
Irishman,  is  your  equal.  In  France  egaliteis  a  political  first 
principle.  The  whole  of  Louis  Napoleon's  regime  depends 

i  Roundabout  Papers,  "On  a  Chalk-Mark  on  the  Door  ".  (Forrest 
Morgan.) 


320  Literary  Studies, 


upon  it ;  remove  that  feeling,  and  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
Empire  will  pass  away.  We  once  heard  a  great  French 
statesman  illustrate  this.  He  was  giving  a  dinner  to  the 
clergy  of  his  neighbourhood,  and  was  observing  that  he  had 
now  no  longer  the  power  to  help  or  hurt  them,  when  an 
eager  cure  said,  with  simple-minded  joy:  "Out,  monsieur, 
maintenant  personne  ne  pent  rien,  ni  le  cornte,  ni  le  pro- 
letaire  ''.  The  democratic  priest  so  rejoiced  at  the  universal 
levelling  which  had  passed  over  his  nation,  that  he  could 
not  help  boasting  of  it  when  silence  would  have  been  much 
better  manners.  We  are  not  now  able — we  have  no  room 
and  no  inclination — to  discuss  the  advantages  of  democratic 
society  ;  but  we  think  in  England  we  may  venture  to  assume 
that  it  is  neither  the  best  nor  the  highest  form  which  a 
society  can  adopt,  and  that  it  is  certainly  fatal  to  that  de- 
velopment of  individual  originality  and  greatness  by  which 
the  past  progress  of  the  human  race  has  been  achieved,  and 
from  which  alone,  it  would  seem,  all  future  progress  is  to 
be  anticipated.  If  it  be  said  that  people  are  all  alike,  that 
the  world  is  a  plain  with  no  natural  valleys  and  no  natural 
hills,  the  picturesqueness  of  existence  is  destroyed,  and, 
what  is  worse,  the  instinctive  emulation  by  which  the 
dweller  in  the  valley  is  stimulated  to  climb  the  hill  is 
annihilated  and  becomes  impossible. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  opposite  system,  which 
prevails  in  the  East — the  system  of  irremovable  inequalities, 
of  hedged-in  castes,  which  no  one  can  enter  but  by  birth, 
and  from  which  no  born  member  can  issue  forth.  This 
system  likewise,  in  this  age  and  country,  needs  no  attack, 
for  it  has  no  defenders.  Every  one  is  ready  to  admit  that  it 
cramps  originality,  by  denning  our  work  irrespective  of  our 
qualities  and  before  we  were  born;  that  it  retards  progress, 
by  restraining  the  wholesome  competition  between  class  and 
class,  and  the  wholesome  migration  from  class  to  class, 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  321 

which   are   the   best   and    strongest   instruments   of  social 
improvement. 

And  if  both  these  systems  be  condemned  as  undesirable 
and  prejudicial,  there  is  no  third  system  except  that  which 
we  have — the  system  of  removable  inequalities,  where  many 
people  are  inferior  to  and  worse  off  than  others,  but  in  which 
each  may  in  theory  hope  to  be  on  a  level  with  the  highest 
below  the  throne,  and  in  which  each  may  reasonably,  and 
without  sanguine  impracticability,  hope  to  gain  one  step  in 
social  elevation,  to  be  at  last  on  a  level  with  those  who  at 
first  were  just  above  them.  But,  from  the  mere  description 
of  such  a  society,  it  is  evident  that,  taking  man  as  he  is, 
with  the  faults  which  we  know  he  has,  and  the  tendencies 
which  he  invariably  displays,  some  poison  of  "snobbishness" 
is  inevitable.  Let  us  define  it  as  the  habit  of  "  pretending 
to  be  higher  in  the  social  scale  than  you  really  are".  Every- 
body will  admit  that  such  pretension  is  a  fault  and  a  vice, 
yet  every  observant  man  of  the  world  would  also  admit  that, 
considering  what  other  misdemeanours  men  commit,  this 
offence  is  not  inconceivably  heinous  ;  and  that,  if  people 
never  did  anything  worse,  they  might  be  let  off  with  a  far 
less  punitive  judgment  than  in  the  actual  state  of  human 
conduct  would  be  just  or  conceivable.  How  are  we  to  hope 
men  will  pass  their  lives  in  putting  their  best  foot  foremost, 
and  yet  will  never  boast  that  their  better  foot  is  farther 
advanced  and  more  perfect  than  in  fact  it  is?  Is  boasting 
to  be  made  a  capital  crime?  Given  social  ambition  as  a 
propensity  of  human  nature ;  given  a  state  of  society  like 
ours,  in  which  there  are  prizes  which  every  man  may  seek, 
degradations  which  every  one  may  erase,  inequalities  which 
every  one  may  remove, — it  is  idle  to  suppose  that  there  will 
not  be  all  sorts  of  striving  to  cease  to  be  last  and  to  begin 
to  be  first,  and  it  is  equally  idle  to  imagine  that  all  such 
strivings  will  be  of  the  highest  kind.  This  effort  will  be, 

VOL.    II.  21 


322  Literary  Studies. 


like  all  the  efforts  of  our  mixed  and  imperfect  human  nature, 
partly  good  and  partly  bad,  with  much  that  is  excellent  and 
beneficial  in  it,  and  much  also  which  is  debasing  and  per- 
nicious. The  bad  striving  after  unpossessed  distinction  is 
snobbishness,  which  from  the  mere  definition  cannot  be 
defended,  but  which  may  be  excused  as  a  natural  frailty  in 
an  emulous  man  who  is  not  distinguished,  who  hopes  to  be 
distinguished,  and  who  perceives  that  a  valuable  means  ot 
gaining  distinction  is  a  judicious  though  false  pretension 
that  it  has  already  been  obtained. 

Mr.  Thackeray,  as  we  think,  committed  two  errors  in 
this  matter.  He  lacerates  "snobs"  in  his  books  as  if  they 
had  committed  an  unpardonable  outrage  and  inexpiable 
crime.  That  man,  he  says,  is  anxious  "  to  know  lords  ; 
and  he  pretends  to  know  more  of  lords  than  he  really  does 
know.  What  a  villain  !  what  a  disgrace  to  our  common 
nature ;  what  an  irreparable  reproach  to  human  reason ! " 
Not  at  all ;  it  is  a  fault  which  satirists  should  laugh  at,  and 
which  moralists  condemn  and  disapprove,  but  which  yet 
does  not  destroy  the  whole  vital  excellence  of  him  who 
possesses  it, — which  may  leave  him  a  good  citizen,  a 
pleasant  husband,  a  warm  friend;  "a  fellow,"  as  the 
undergraduate  said,  "  up  in  his  morals". 

In  transient  society  it  is  possible,  we  think,  that  Mr. 
Thackeray  thought  too  much  of  social  inequalities.  They 
belonged  to  that  common,  plain,  perceptible  world  which 
filled  his  mind,  and  which  left  him  at  times,  and  at  casual 
moments,  no  room  for  a  purely  intellectual  and  just  esti- 
mate of  men  as  they  really  are  in  themselves,  and  apart 
from  social  perfection  or  defect.  He  could  gauge  a  man's 
reality  as  well  as  any  observer,  and  far  better  than  most : 
his  attainments  were  great,  his  perception  of  men  instinctive, 
his  knowledge  of  casual  matters  enormous  ;  but  he  had  a 
greater  difficulty  than  other  men  in  relying  only  upon  his 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  323 

own  judgment.  "  What  the  footman — what  Mr.  Yellow- 
plush  Jeames  would  think  and  say,"  could  not  but  occur  to 
his  mind,  and  would  modify,  not  his  settled  judgment,  but 
his  transient  and  casual  opinion  of  the  poet  or  philosopher. 
By  the  constitution  of  his  mind  he  thought  much  of 
social  distinctions;  and  yet  he  was  in  his  writings  too 
severe  on  those  who,  in  cruder  and  baser  ways,  showed 
that  they  also  were  thinking  much. 

Those  who  perceive  that  this  irritable  sensibility  was 
the  basis  of  Thackeray's  artistic  character,  that  it  gave  him 
his  materials,  his  implanted  knowledge  of  things  and  men, 
and  gave  him  also  that  keen  and  precise  style  which  hit  in 
description  the  nice  edges  of  all  objects, — those  who  trace 
these  great  qualities  back  to  their  real  source  in  a  somewhat 
painful  organisation,  must  have  been  vexed  or  amused, 
according  to  their  temperament,  at  the  common  criticism 
which  associates  him  with  Fielding.  Fielding's  essence  was 
the  very  reverse  ;  it  was  a  bold  spirit  of  bounding  happiness. 
No  just  observer  could  talk  to  Mr.  Thackeray,  or  look  at 
him,  without  seeing  that  he  had  deeply  felt  many  sorrows — 
perhaps  that  he  was  a  man  likely  to  feel  sorrows — that  he 
was  of  an  anxious  temperament.  Fielding  was  a  reckless 
enjoyer.  He  saw  the  world — wealth  and  glory,  the  best 
dinner  and  the  worst  dinner,  the  gilded  salon  and  the  low 
sponging-house — and  he  saw  that  they  were  good.  Down 
every  line  of  his  characteristic  writings  there  runs  this 
elemental  energy  of  keen  delight.  There  is  no  trace  of  such 
a  thing  in  Thackeray.  A  musing  fancifulness  is  far  more 
characteristic  of  him  than  a  joyful  energy. 

Sterne  had  all  this  sensibility  also,  but — and  this  is  the 
cardinal  discrepancy — it  did  not  make  him  irritable.  He 
was  not  hurried  away,  like  Fielding,  by  buoyant  delight ;  he 
stayed  and  mused  on  painful  scenes.  But  they  did  not 
make  him  angry.  He  was  not  irritated  at  the  "  foolish  fat 


324  Literary  Studies. 


scullion  ".1  He  did  not  vex  himself  because  of  the  vulgar. 
He  did  not  amass  petty  details  to  prove  that  tenth-rate 
people  were  ever  striving  to  be  ninth-rate  people.  He  had 
no  tendency  to  rub  the  bloom  off  life.  He  accepted  pretty- 
looking  things,  even  the  French  aristocracy,  and  he  owes 
his  immortality  to  his  making  them  prettier  than  they  are. 
Thackeray  was  pained  by  things,  and  exaggerated  their 
imperfections ;  Sterne  brooded  over  things  with  joy  or 
sorrow,  and  he  idealised  their  sentiment — their  pathetic  or 
joyful  characteristics.  This  is  why  the  old  lady  said,  "  Mr. 
Thackeray  was  an  uncomfortable  writer," — and  an  uncom- 
fortable writer  he  is. 

Nor  had  Sterne  a  trace  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  peculiar  and 
characteristic  scepticism.  He  accepted  simply  the  pains 
and  pleasures,  the  sorrows  and  the  joys  of  the  world ;  he 
was  not  perplexed  by  them,  nor  did  he  seek  to  explain 
them,  or  account  for  them.  There  is  a  tinge — a  mitigated, 
but  perceptible  tinge — of  Swift's  philosophy  in  Thackeray. 
"  Why  is  all  this  ?  Surely  this  is  very  strange  ?  Am  I 
right  in  sympathising  with  such  stupid  feelings,  such  petty 
sensations  ?  Why  are  these  things  ?  Am  I  not  a  fool  to 
care  about  or  think  of  them  ?  The  world  is  dark,  and  the 
great  curtain  hides  from  us  all."  This  is  not  a  steady  or 
a  habitual  feeling,  but  it  is  never  quite  absent  for  many 
pages.  It  was  inevitable,  perhaps,  that  in  a  sceptical  and 
inquisitive  age  like  this,  some  vestiges  of  puzzle  and  per- 
plexity should  pass  into  the  writings  of  our  great  senti- 
mentalist. He  would  not  have  fairly  represented  the 
moods  of  his  time  if  he  omitted  that  pervading  one. 

We  had  a  little  more  to  say  of  these  great  men,  but  our 
limits  are  exhausted,  and  we  must  pause.  Of  Thackeray 
it  is  too  early  to  speak  at  length.  A  certain  distance  is 
needful  for  a  just  criticism.  The  present  generation  have 

*  Tristram  Shandy,  book  iv.(  chap  vii. 


Sterne  and  Thackeray.  325 

learned  too  much  from  him  to  be  able  to  judge  him  rightly. 
We  do  not  know  the  merit  of  those  great  pictures  which 
have  sunk  into  our  minds,  and  which  have  coloured  our 
thoughts,  which  are  become  habitual  memories.  In  the 
books  we  know  best,  as  in  the  people  we  know  best,  small 
points,  sometimes  minor  merits,  sometimes  small  faults, 
have  an  undue  prominence.  When  the  young  critics  of 
this  year  have  grey  hairs,  their  children  will  tell  them  what 
is  the  judgment  of  posterity  upon  Mr.  Thackeray. 


326 


WORDSWORTH,  TENNYSON,  AND  BROWN- 
ING; OR,  PURE,  ORNATE,  AND  GRO- 
TESQUE ART  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY.1 

(1864.) 

WE  couple  these  two  books  together,  not  because  of  their 
likeness,  for  they  are  as  dissimilar  as  books  can  be  ;  nor  on 
account  of  the  eminence  of  their  authors,  for  in  general  two 
great  authors  are  too  much  for  one  essay  ;  but  because  they 
are  the  best  possible  illustration  of  something  we  have  to 
say  upon  poetical  art — because  they  may  give  to  it  life  and 
freshness.  The  accident  of  contemporaneous  publication 
has  here  brought  together  two  books  very  characteristic  of 
modern  art,  and  we  want  to  show  how  they  are  character- 
istic. 

Neither  English  poetry  nor  English  criticism  have  ever 
recovered  the  eruption  which  they  both  made  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  into  the  fashionable  world.  The  poems 
of  Lord  Byron  were  received  with  an  avidity  that  resembles 
our  present  avidity  for  sensation  novels,  and  were  read  by  a 
class  which  at  present  reads  little  but  such  novels.  Old 
men  who  remember  those  days  may  be  heard  to  say :  "  We 
hear  nothing  of  poetry  now-a-days  ;  it  seems  quite  down  ". 
And  "  down"  it  certainly  is,  if  for  poetry  it  be  a  descent  to 
be  no  longer  the  favourite  excitement  of  the  more  frivolous 
part  of  the  "upper"  world.  That  stimulating  poetry  is 

1  Enoch  Arden,  etc.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.C.L.,  Poet  Laureate. 
Dramatis  Persona.  By  Robert  Browning. 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          327 

now  little  read.  A  stray  schoolboy  may  still  be  detected 
in  a  wild  admiration  for  the  "Giaour"  or  the  "Corsair"  (and 
it  is  suitable  to  his  age,  and  he  should  not  be  reproached 
for  it),  but  the  real  posterity — the  quiet  students  of  a 
past  literature — never  read  them  or  think  of  them.  A 
line  or  two  linger  on  the  memory ;  a  few  telling  strokes 
of  occasional  and  felicitous  energy  are  quoted,  but  this 
is  all.  As  wholes,  these  exaggerated  stories  were  worth- 
less ;  they  taught  nothing,  and  therefore  they  are  for- 
gotten. If  now-a-days  a  dismal  poet  were,  like  Byron,  to 
lament  the  fact  of  his  birth,  and  to  hint  that  he  was  too 
good  for  the  world,  the  Saturday  Reviewers  would  say  that 
"they  doubted  if  he  was  too  good  ;  that  a  sulky  poet  was  a 
questionable  addition  to  a  tolerable  world ;  that  he  need  not 
have  been  born,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned  ".  Doubtless, 
there  is  much  in  Byron  besides  his  dismal  exaggeration, 
but  it  was  that  exaggeration  which  made  "  the  sensation  " 
which  gave  him  a  wild  moment  of  dangerous  fame.  As  so 
often  happens,  the  cause  of  his  momentary  fashion  is  the 
cause  also  of  his  lasting  oblivion.  Moore's  former  reputa- 
tion was  less  excessive,  yet  it  has  not  been  more  permanent. 
The  prettiness  of  a  few  songs  preserves  the  memory  of  his 
name,  but  as  a  poet  to  read  he  is  forgotten.  There  is 
nothing  to  read  in  him  ;  no  exquisite  thought,  no  sublime 
feeling,  no  consummate  description  of  true  character. 
Almost  the  sole  result  of  the  poetry  of  that  time  is  the  harm 
which  it  has  done.  It  degraded  for  a  time  the  whole 
character  of  the  art.  It  said  by  practice,  by  a  most  efficient 
and  successful  practice,  that  it  was  the  aim,  the  duty  of 
poets,  to  catch  the  attention  of  the  passing,  the  fashionable, 
the  busy  world.  If  a  poem  "fell  dead,"  it  was  nothing; 
it  was  composed  to  please  the  "  London  "  of  the  year,  and 
if  that  London  did  not  like  it,  why,  it  had  failed.  It  fixed 
upon  the  minds  of  a  whole  generation,  it  engraved  in 


328  Literary  Studies. 


popular  memory  and  tradition,  a  vague  conviction  that 
poetry  is  but  one  of  the  many  amusements  for  the  enjoying 
(tlasses,  for  the  lighter  hours  of  all  classes.  The  mere 
tiotion,  the  bare  idea,  that  poetry  is  a  deep  thing,  a  teaching 
thing,  the  most  surely  and  wisely  elevating  of  human  things, 
Jis  even  now  to  the  coarse  public  mind  nearly  unknown. 

As  was  the  fate  of  poetry,  so  inevitably  was  that  of 
criticism.  The  science  that  expounds  which  poetry  is  good 
MlcTwhich  is  bad,  is  dependent  for  its  popular  reputation 
on  the  popular  estimate  of  poetry  itself.  The  critics  of  that 
day  had  a  day,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  some 
since ;  they  professed  to  tell  the  fashionable  world  in  what 
books  it  would  find  new  pleasure,  and  therefore  they  were 
read  by  the  fashionable  world.  Byron  counted  the  critic 
and  poet  equal.  The  Edinburgh  Review  penetrated  among 
the  young,  and  into  places  of  female  resort  where  it  does 
not  go  now.  As  people  ask,  "  Have  you  read  Henry  Dun- 
bar  ?  and  what  do  you  think  of  it  ?  "  so  they  then  asked, 
"  Have  you  read  the  '  Giaour  ? '  and  what  do  you  think  of  it  ? " 
Lord  Jeffrey,  a  shrewd  judge  of  the  world,  employed  himself 
in  telling  it  what  to  think ;  not  so  much  what  it  ought  to 
think,  as  what  at  bottom  it  did  think,  and  so  by  dexterous 
sympathy  with  current  society  he  gained  contemporary  fame 
and  power.  Such  fame  no  critic  must  hope  for  now.  His 
articles  will  not  penetrate  where  the  poems  themselves  do 
not  penetrate.  When  poetry  was  noisy,  criticism  was  loud  ; 
now  poetry  is  a  still  small  voice,  and  criticism  must  be 
smaller  and  stiller.  As  the  function  of  such  criticism  was. 
limited,  so  was  its  subject.  For  the  great  and  (as  time  now 
proves)  the  permanent  part  of  the  poetry  of  his  time — for 
Shelley  and  for  Wordsworth — Lord  Jeffrey  had  but  one 
word.  He  said,1  "  It  won't  do  ".  And  it  will  not  do  to 
amuse  a  drawing-room. 

1  The  first  words  in  Lord  Jeffrey's  celebrated  review  of  the  "  Excursion  " 
were,  "  This  will  never  do  ". 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          329 

The  doctrine  that  poetry  is  a  light  amusement  for  idle 
hours,  a  metrical  species  of  sensational  novel,  did  not  in- 
deed become  popular  without  gainsayers.  Thirty  years  ago, 
Mr.  Carlyle  most  rudely  contradicted  it.  But  perhaps  this 
is  about  all  that  he  has  done.  He  has  denied,  but  he  hat 
not  disproved.  He  has  contradicted  the  floating  paganismJJ 
but  he  has  not  founded  the  deep  religion.  All  about  anft 
around  us  a.  faith  in  poetry  struggles  to  be  extricated,  but  It 
is  not  extricated.  Some  day,  at  the  touch  of  the  true  word, 
the  whole  confusion  will  by  magic  cease ;  the  broken  and 
shapeless  notions  will  cohere  and  crystallise  into  a  bright 
and  true  theory.  But  this  cannot  be  yet. 

But  though  no  complete  theory  of  the  poetic  art  as  yet 
be  possible  for  us,  though  perhaps  only  our  children's 
children  will  be  able  to  speak  on  this  subject  with  the 
assured  confidence  which  belongs  to  accepted  truth,  yet 
something  of  some  certainty  may  be  stated  on  the  easier 
elements,  and  something  that  will  throw  light  on  these  two 
new  books.  But  it  will  be  necessary  to  assign  reasons, 
and  the  assigning  of  reasons  is  a  dry  task.  Years  ago,  when 
criticism  only  tried  to  show  how  poetry  could  be  made  a 
good  amusement,  it  was  not  impossible  that  criticism  itself 
should  be  amusing.  But  now  it  must  at  least  be  serious, 
for  we  believe  that  poetry  is  a  serious  and  a  deep  thing. 

There  should  be  a  word  in  the  language  of  literary  art 
to  express  what  the  word  "  picturesque  "  expresses  for  the 
fine  arts.  Picturesque  means  fit  to  be  put  into  a  picture ; 
we  want  a  word  literatesque,  "  fit  to  be  put  into  a  book  ". 
An  artist  goes  through  a  hundred  different  country  scenes, 
rich  with  beauties,  charms  and  merits,  but  he  does  not 
paint  any  of  them.  He  leaves  them  alone ;  he  idles  on  till 
he  finds  the  hundred-and-first — a  scene  which  many  ob- 
servers would  not  think  much  of,  but  which  he  knows  by 
virtue  of  his  art  will  look  well  on  canvas,  and  this  he  paints 


33O  Literary  Studies. 


and  preserves.     Susceptible  observers,  though   not  artists, 
feel  this  quality  too ;  they  say  of  a  scene,  "  How  picturesque ! " 
meaning  by  this  a  quality  distinct  from  that  of  beauty,  or 
sublimity,  or  grandeur — meaning  to  speak  not  only  of  the 
scene  as  it  is  in  itself,  but  also  of  its  fitness  for  imitation  by 
art;  meaning  not  only  that  it  is  good,  but  that  its  goodness 
.is  such  as  ought  to  be  transferred  to  paper ;  meaning  not 
^simply  that  it  fascinates,  but  also  that  its  fascination  is  such 
is  ought  to  be  copied  by  man.     A  fine  and  insensible  instinct 
las  put  language  to  this  subtle  use ;  it  expresses  an  idea 
jithout  which  fine-art  criticism  could  not  go  on,  and  it  is 
iry  natural  that  the  language  of  pictorial  art  should  be 
/etter  supplied  with  words  than  that  of  literary  criticism, 
for  the  eye  was  used  before  the  mind,  and  language  em- 
bodies primitive  sensuous  ideas,  long  ere  it  expresses,  or 
need  express,  abstract  and  literary  ones. 

The  reason  why  a  landscape  is  "  picturesque "  is  often 
said  to  be,  that  such  landscape  represents  an  "  idea".  But 
this  explanation,  though,  in  the  minds  of  some  who  use  it, 
it  is  near  akin  to  the  truth,  fails  to  explain  that  truth  to 
those  who  did  not  know  it  before  ;  the  word  "  idea  "  is  so 
often  used  in  these  subjects  when  people  do  not  know  any- 
thing else  to  say;  it  represents  so  often  a  kind  of  intellectual 
insolvency,  when  philosophers  are  at  their  wits'  end,  that 
shrewd  people  will  never  readily  on  any  occasion  give  it 
credit  for  meaning  anything.  A  wise  explainer  must,  there- 
fore, look  out  for  other  words  to  convey  what  he  has  to  say. 
Landscapes,  like  everything  else  in  nature,  divide  themselves 
as  we  look  at  them  into  a  sort  of  rude  classification.  We 
go  down  a  river,  for  example,  and  we  see  a  hundred  land- 
scapes on  both  sides  of  it,  resembling  one  another  in  much, 
yet  differing  in  something;  with  trees  here,  and  a  farm- 
house there,  and  shadows  on'  one  side,  and  a  deep  pool  far 
on,  a  collection  of  circumstances  most  familiar  in  them- 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          331 

selves,  but  making  a  perpetual  novelty  by  the  magic  of  their 
various  combinations.  We  travel  so  for  miles  and  hours, 
and  then  we  come  to  a  scene  which  also  has  these  various 
circumstances  and  adjuncts,  but  which  combines  them  best, 
which  makes  the  best  whole  of  them,  which  shows  them 
in  their  best  proportion  at  a  single  glance  before  the  eye. 
Then  we  say  :  "  This  is  the  place  to  paint  the  river  ;  this  is 
the  picturesque  point !  "  Or,  if  not  artists  or  critics  of  art, 
we  feel  without  analysis  or  examination  that  somehow  this 
bend  or  sweep  of  the  river  shall  in  future  be  the  river tqj&s:  that 
it  is  the  image  of  it  which  we  will  retain  in  our  mind's  eye,  by 
which  we  will  remember  it,  which  we  will  call  up  when 
we  want  to  describe  or  think  of  it.  Some  fine  countries, 
some  beautiful  rivers,  have  not  this  picturesque  quality : 
they  give  us  elements  of  beauty,  but  they  do  not  combine 
them  together ;  we  go  on  for  a  time  delighted,  but  after  a 
time  somehow  we  get  wearied ;  we  feel  that  we  are  taking 
in  nothing  and  learning  nothing ;  we  get  no  collected  image 
before  our  mind ;  we  see  the  accidents  and  circumstances 
of  that  sort  of  scenery,  but  the  summary  scene  we  do  not 
see ;  we  find  disjecta  membra,  but  no  form  ;  various  and 
many  and  faulty  approximations  are  displayed  in  succession  ; 
but  the  absolute  perfection  in  that  country's  or  river's 
scenery — its  type — is  withheld.  We  go  away  from  such 
places  in  part  delighted,  but  in  part  baffled ;  we  have  been 
puzzled  by  pretty  things ;  we  have  beheld  a  hundred 
different  inconsistent  specimens  of  the  same  sort  of  beauty ; 
but  the  rememberable  idea,  the  full  development,  the 
characteristic  individuality  of  it,  we  have  not  seen. 

We  find  the  same  sort  of  quality  in  all  parts  of  painting. 
We  see  a  portrait  of  a  person  we  know,  and  we  say,  "  It 
is  like — yes,  like,  of  course,  but  it  is  not  the  man  "  ;  we 
feel  it  could  not  be  any  one  else,  but  still,  somehow  it  fails 
to  brine:  home  to  us  the  individual  as  we  know  him  to  be. 


332  Literary 


He  is  not  there.  An  accumulation  of  features  like  his  are 
painted,  but  his  essence  is  not  painted ;  an  approximation 
more  or  less  excellent  is  given,  but  the  characteristic  ex- 
pression, the  typical  form,  of  the  man  is  withheld. 

Literature — the  painting  of  words — has  the  same  quality, 
.but  wants  the  analogous  word.  The  word  " U^rates^u^  " 
Would  mean,  if  we  possessed  it,  that  perfect  combination 
in  subject-matter,  of  literature,  which  suits  the  art  of  litera- 
ture. We  often  meet  people,  and  say  of  them,  sometimes 
meaning  well  and  sometimes  ill:  "How  well  so-and-so 
I  would  do  in  a  book ! "  Such  people  are  by  no  means  the 
pest  people;  but  they  are  the  most  effective  people — the 
most  rememberable  people.  Frequently,  when  we  first  know 
tnem,  we  like  them  because  they  explain  to  us  so  much 
of  our  experience ;  we  have  known  many  people  "  like 
that,"  in  one  way  or  another,  but  we  did  not  seem  to  under- 
stand them  ;  they  were  nothing  to  us,  for  their  traits  were  in- 
distinct; we  forgot  them,  for  they  hitched  on  to  nothing, 
and  we  could  not  classify  them.  But  when  we  see  ih&fype 
of  the  genus,  at  once  we  seem  to  comprehend  its  character ; 
the  inferior  specimens  are  explained  by  the  perfect  embodi- 
ment ;  the  approximations  are  definable  when  we  know  the 
ideal  to  which  they  draw  near.  There  are  an  infinite 
number  of  classes  of  human  beings,  but  in  each  of  these 
classes  there  is  a  distinctive  type  which,  if  we  could  expand 
it  in  words,  would  define  the  class.  We  cannot  expand 
it  in  formal  terms  any  more  than  a  landscape,  or  a  species 
of  landscape ;  but  we  have  an  art,  an  art  of  words,  which 
can  draw  it.  Travellers  and  others  often  bring  home,  in 
addition  to  their  long  journals — which,  though  so  living  to 
them,  are  so  dead,  so  inanimate,  so  undescriptive  to  all  else 
— a  pen-and-ink  sketch,  rudely  done  very  likely,  but  which, 
perhaps,  even  the  more  for  the  blots  and  strokes,  gives  a 
distinct  notion,  an  emphatic  image,  to  all  who  see  it.  We 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          333 

say  at  once,  now  we  know  the  sort  of  thing.     The  sketch)/ 
has   hit   the   mind.      True   literature   does   the   same.      Itf 
describes  sorts,  varieties,  and  permutations,  by  delineating 
the  type  of  each  sort,  the  ideal  of  each  variety,  the  central^ 
the  marking  trait  of  each  permutation. 

On  this  account,  the  greatest  artists  of  the  world  have 
ever  shown  an  enthusiasm  for  reality.  To  care  for  notions 
and  abstractions  ;  to  philosophise  ;  to  reason  out  conclusions ; 
to  care  for  schemes  of  thought,  are  signs  in  the  artistic 
mind  of  secondary  excellence.  A  Schiller,  a  Euripides,  a 
Ben  Jonson,  cares  for  ideas — for  the  parings  of  the  intellect, 
and  the  distillation  of  the  mind ;  a  Shakespeare,  a  Homer,  a 
Goethe,  finds  his  mental  occupation,  the  true  home  of 
his  natural  thoughts,  in  the  real  world — "  which  is 
the  world  of  all  of  us " l — where  the  face  of  Nature, 
the  moving  masses  of  men  and  women,  are  ever  chang- 
ing, ever  multiplying,  ever  mixing  one  with  the  other. 
The  reason/i^x  plain  *  Afcjjusinejss  of  the  poet,  of  the  artist, 
is  with  types  :&c\&  those  types  are  mirrored  in  reality. 
As  a  ffaSiitermust  not  only  have  a  hand  to  execute,  but  an 
eye  to  distinguish — as  he  must  go  here  and  there  through 
the  real  world  to  catch  the  picturesque  man,  the  picturesque 
scene,  which  is  to  live  on  his  canvas — so  the  poet  must  find 
in  that  reality,  the  literatesque  man,  the  literatesque  scene, 
which  nature  intends  for  him,  and  which  will  live  in  his 
page.  Even  in  reality  he  will  not  find  this  type  complete, 
or  the  characteristics  perfect ;  but  there  he  will  find,  at  least, 
something,  some  hint,  some  intimation,  some  suggestion  ; 
whereas,  in  the  stagnant  home  of  his  own  thoughts  he  will 
find  nothing  pure,  nothing  as  it  is,  nothing  which  does  not 
bear  his  own  mark,  which  is  not  somehow  altered  by  a 
mixture  with  himself. 

The  first  conversation  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  illustrates 

1  Wordsworth  :  "  Prelude,"  book  xi. 


334  Literary  Studies. 


this  conception  of  the  poet's  art.  Goethe  was  at  that  time 
prejudiced  against  Schiller,  we  must  remember,  partly  from 
what  he  considered  the  outrages  of  the  "  Robbers,"  partly 
because  of  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  Schiller's  "  Essay  on 
Grace  and  Dignity,"  he  tells  us — 

"  Was  yet  less  of  a  kind  to  reconcile  me.  The  philosophy  of  Kant, 
which  exalts  the  dignity  of  mind  so  highly,  while  appearing  to  restrict 
it,  Schiller  had  joyfully  embraced :  it  unfolded  the  extraordinary  qualities 
which  Nature  had  implanted  in  him  ;  and  in  the  lively  feeling  of  freedom 
and  self-direction,  he  showed  himself  unthankful  to  the  Great  Mother, 
who  surely  had  not  acted  like  a  step-dame  towards  him.  Instead  of 
viewing  her  as  self-subsisting,  as  producing  with  a  living  force,  and 
according  to  appointed  laws,  alike  the  highest  and  the  lowest  of  her 
works,  he  took  her  up  under  the  aspect  of  some  empirical  native  qualities 
of  the  human  mind.  Certain  harsh  passages  I  could  even  directly  apply 
to  myself:  they  exhibited  my  confession  of  faith  in  a  false  light ;  and  I 
felt  that  if  written  without  particular  attention  to  me,  they  were  still 
worse ;  for,  in  that  case,  the  vast  chasm  which  lay  between  us  gaped 
but  so  much  the  more  distinctly." 

After  a  casual  meeting  at  a  Society  for  Natural  History, 
they  walked  home,  and  Goethe  proceeds : — 

"  We  reached  his  house  ;  the  talk  induced  me  to  go  in.  I  then  ex- 
pounded to  him,  with  as  much  vivacity  as  possible,  the  Metamorphosis 
of  Plants,1  drawing  out  on  paper,  with  many  characteristic  strokes,  a 
symbolic  plant  for  him,  as  I  proceeded.  He  heard  and  saw  all  this, 
with  much  interest  and  distinct  comprehension  ;  but  when  I  had  done, 
he  shook  his  head  and  said  :  '  This  is  no  experiment,  this  is  an  idea '.  I 
stopped  with  some  degree  of  irritation  ;  for  the  point  which  separated 
us  was  most  luminously  marked  by  this  expression.  The  opinions  in 
'  Dignity  and  Grace '  again  occurred  to  me  ;  the  old  grudge  was  just 
awakening ;  but  I  smothered  it,  and  merely  said :  '  I  was  happy  to  find 
that  I  had  got  ideas  without  knowing  it,  nay,  that  I  saw  them  before  my 
eyes '. 

1  "  A  curious  physiologico-botanical  theory  by  Goethe,  which  appears 
to  be  entirely  unknown  in  this  country :  though  several  eminent  con- 
tinental botanists  have  noticed  it  with  commendation.  It  is  explained 
at  considerable  length  in  this  same  Morphologic." — Note  by  Carlyle. 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          335 


"  Schiller  had  much  more  prudence  and  dexterity  of  management 
than  I ;  he  was  also  thinking  of  his  periodical  the  Horen,  about  this  time, 
and  of  course  rather  wished  to  attract  than  repel  me.  Accordingly,  he 
answered  me  like  an  accomplished  Kantite ;  and  as  my  stiff-necked 
Realism  gave  occasion  to  many  contradictions,  much  battling  took  place 
between  us,  and  at  last  a  truce,  in  which  neither  party  would  consent 
to  yield  the  victory,  but  each  held  himself  invincible.  Positions  like  the 
following  grieved  me  to  the  very  soul :  How  can  there  ever  be  an  experi- 
ment, that  shall  correspond  with  an  idea  ?  The  specific  quality  of  an  idea 
is,  that  no  experiment  can  reach  it  or  agree  with  it.  Yet  if  he  held  as  an 
idea,  the  same  thing  which  I  looked  upon  as  an  experiment,  there  must 
certainly,  I  thought,  be  some  community  between  us — some  ground 
whereon  both  of  us  might  meet !  "  ] 

With  Goethe's  natural  history,  or  with  Kant's  philosophy, 
we  have  here  no  concern  ;  but  we  can  combine  the  expressions 
of  the  two  great  poets  into  a  nearly  complete  description  of 
poetry.  The  "symbolic  plant"  is  the  type  of  which  we 
speak,  the  ideal  at  which  inferior  specimens  aim,  the  class 
characteristic  in  which  they  all  share,  but  which  none  shows 
forth  fully.  Goethe  was  right  in  searching  for  this  in  reality 
and  nature ;  Schiller  was  right  in  saying  that  it  was  an 
"  idea,"  a  transcending  notion  to  which  approximations 
could  be  found  in  experience,  but  only  approximations — 
which  could  not  be  found  there  itself.  Goethe,  as  a  poet, 
rightly  felt  the  primary  necessity  of  outward  suggestion 
and  experience ;  Schiller,  as  a  philosopher,  rightly  felt  its 
imperfection. 

But  in  these  delicate  matters,  it  is  easy  to  misapprehend. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  a  sort  of  poetry  which  is  produced  as 
it  were  out  of  the  author's  mind.  The  description  of  the 
poet's  own  moods  and  feelings  is  a  common  sort  of  poetry — 
perhaps  the  commonest  sort.  But  the  peculiarity  of  such 
cases  is,  that  the  poet  does  not  describe  himself  as  himself: 
autobiography  is  not  his  object ;  he  takes  himself  as  a 

1  Appendix  to  Carlyle's  Life  of  Schiller \  note  C. 


336  Literary  Studies. 


specimen  of  human  nature ;  he  describes,  not  himself,  but 
a  distillation  of  himself:  he  takes  such  of  his  moods  as  are 
most  characteristic,  as  most  typify  certain  moods  of  certain 
men,  or  certain  moods  of  all  men  ;  he  chooses  preponderant 
{feelings  of  special   sorts  of  men,  or  occasional  feelings  of 
pen  of  all  sorts ;  but  with  whatever  other  difference  and 
diversity,    the   essence   is   that   such    self-describing   poets 
describe  what  is  in  them,  but  not  peculiar  to  them, — what 
s   generic,    not   what   is    special    and   individual.      Gray's 
'  Elegy  "  describes  a  mood  which  Gray  felt  more  than  other 
nen,  but  which  most  others,   perhaps  all  others,  feel  too. 
[t   is    more    popular,    perhaps,    than   any    English    poem, 
Because  that  sort  of  feeling  is  the  most  diffused  of  high 
:eelings,  and  because  Gray  added  to  a  singular  nicety  of 
fancy  a  habitual  proneness  to  a  contemplative — a  discern- 
ing but  unbiassed — meditation  on  death  and  on  life.     Other 
poets  cannot  hope  for  such  success :  a  subject  so  popular, 
so  grave,  so  wise,  and  yet  so  suitable  to  the  writer's  nature, 
is  hardly  to  be  found.     But  the  same  ideal,  the  same  un- 
autobiographical   character  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  meaner  men.      Take  sonnets  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  for 
example : — 

I. 

"  TO    A    FRIEND. 

"  When  we  were  idlers  with  the  loitering  rills, 
The  need  of  human  love  we  little  noted : 
Our  love  was  Nature  ;  and  the  peace  that  floated 
On  the  white  mist,  and  dwelt  upon  the  hills, 
To  sweet  accord  subdued  our  wayward  wills : 
One  soul  was  ours,  one  mind,  one  heart  devoted, 
That,  wisely  doating,  ask'd  not  why  it  doated, 
And  ours  the  unknown  joy,  which  knowing  kills. 
But  now  I  find,  how  dear  thou  wert  to  me  ; 
That  man  is  more  than  half  of  Nature's  treasure, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          337 

Of  that  fair  Beauty  which  no  eye  can  see, 
Of  that  sweet  music  which  no  ear  can  measure  ; 
And  now  the  streams  may  sing  for  others'  pleasure. 
The  hills  sleep  on  in  their  eternity." 

II. 

"TO   THE   SAME. 

"  In  the  great  city  we  are  met  again, 
Where  many  souls  there  are  that  breathe  and  die, 
Scarce  knowing  more  of  Nature's  potency, 
Than  what  they  learn  from  heat,  or  cold,  or  rain, 
The  sad  vicissitude  of  weary  pain  ; — 
For  busy  man  is  lord  of  ear  and  eye, 
And  what  hath  Nature,  but  the  vast  void  sky, 
And  the  thronged  river  toiling  to  the  main  ? 
Oh  !  say  not  so,  for  she  shall  have  her  part 
In  every  smile,  in  every  tear  that  falls, 
And  she  shall  hide  her  in  the  secret  heart, 
Where  love  persuades,  and  sterner  duty  calls  : 
But  worse  it  were  than  death,  or  sorrow's  smart, 
To  live  without  a  friend  within  these  walls." 

III. 

"  TO    THE    SAME. 

"  We  parted  on  the  mountains,  as  two  streams 
From  one  clear  spring  pursue  their  several  ways  ; 
And  thy  fleet  course  hath  been  through  many  a  maze 
In  foreign  lands,  where  silvery  Padus  gleams 
To  that  delicious  sky,  whose  glo.wing  beams 
Brightened  the  tresses  that  old  Poets  praise  ; 
Where  Petrarch's  patient  love  and  artful  lays, 
And  Ariosto's  song  of  many  themes, 
Moved  the  soft  air.     But  I,  a  lazy  brook, 
As  close  pent  up  within  my  native  dell, 
Have  crept  along  from  nook  to  shady  nook, 
Where  flow'rets  blow,  and  whispering  Naiads  dwell. 
Yet  now  we  meet,  that  parted  were  so  wide, 
O'er  rough  and  smooth  to  travel  side  by  side." 
VOL.    II.  22 


338  Literary  Studies. 


The  contrast  of  instructive  and  enviable  locomotion  with 
refining  but  instructive  meditation  is  not  special  and  peculiar 
to  these  two,  but  general  and  universal.  It  was  set  down 
by  Hartley  Coleridge  because  he  was  the  most  meditative 
and  refining  of  men. 

What  sort  of  literatesque  types  are  fit  to  be  described  in 
the  sort  of  literature  called  poetry,  is  a  matter  on  which 
much  might  be  written.  Mr.  Arnold,  some  years  since, 
put  forth  a  theory  that  the  art  of  poetry  could  only  delineate 
great  actions.  But  though,  rightly  interpreted  and  under- 
stood— using  the  word  action  so  as  to  include  high  and 
sound  activity  in  contemplation — this  definition  may  suit 
the  highest  poetry,  it  certainly  cannot  be  stretched  to  in- 
clude many  inferior  sorts  and  even  many  good  sorts.  No- 
body in  their  senses  would  describe  Gray's  "  Elegy  "  as  the 
delineation  of  a  "  great  action " ;  some  kinds  of  mental 
contemplation  may  be  energetic  enough  to  deserve  this 
name,  but  Gray  would  have  been  frightened  at  the  very 
word.  He  loved  scholarlike  calm  and  quiet  inaction  ;  his 
very  greatness  depended  on  his  not  acting,  on  his  "  wise 
passiveness,"  on  his  indulging  the  grave  idleness  which  so 
well  appreciates  so  much  of  human  life.  But  the  best 
answer — the  reductio  ad  absurdum — of  Mr.  Arnold's  doc- 
trine, is  the  mutilation  which  it  has  caused  him  to  make  of 
his  own  writings.  It  has  forbidden  him,  he  tells  us,  to 
reprint  "Empedocles" — a  poem  undoubtedly  containing 
defects  and  even  excesses,  but  containing  also  these  lines : — • 

"  And  yet  what  days  were  those,  Parmenides ! 
When  we  were  young,  when  we  could  number  friends 
In  all  the  Italian  cities  like  ourselves, 
When  with  elated  hearts  we  join'd  your  train, 
Ye  Sun-born  virgins !  on  the  road  of  Truth. 
Then  we  could  still  enjoy :  then  neither  thought 
Nor  outward  things  were  clos'd  and  dead  to  us, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          339 

But  we  receiv'd  the  shock  of  mighty  thoughts 

On  simple  minds  with  a  pure  natural  joy ; 

And  if  the  sacred  load  oppress'd  our  brain, 

We  had  the  power  to  feel  the  pressure  eas'd, 

The  brow  unbound,  the  thoughts  flow  free  again, 

In  the  delightful  commerce  of  the  world. 

We  had  not  lost  our  balance  then,  nor  grown 

Thought's  slaves,  and  dead  to  every  natural  joy. 

The  smallest  thing  could  give  us  pleasure  then — 

The  sports  of  the  country  people ; 

A  flute  note  from  the  woods ; 

Sunset  over  the  sea  : 

Seed-time  and  harvest ; 

The  reapers  in  the  corn ; 

The  vinedresser  in  the  vineyard  ; 

The  village-girl  at  her  wheel. 

Fulness  of  life  and  power  of  feeling,  ye 

Are  for  the  happy,  for  the  souls  at  ease, 

Who  dwell  on  a  firm  basis  of  content. 

But  he  who  has  outliv'd  his  prosperous  days, 

But  he,  whose  youth  fell  on  a  different  world 

From  that  on  which  his  exil'd  age  is  thrown  ; 

Whose  mind  was  fed  on  other  food,  was  train'd 

By  other  rules  that  are  in  vogue  to-day  ; 

Whose  habit  of  thought  is  fix'd,  who  will  not  change, 

But  in  a  world  he  loves  not  must  subsist 

In  ceaseless  opposition,  be  the  guard 

Of  his  own  breast,  fetter'd  to  what  he  guards, 

That  the  world  win  no  mastery  over  him  ; 

Who  has  no  friend,  no  fellow  left,  not  one ; 

Who  has  no  minute's  breathing  space  allow'd 

To  nurse  his  dwindling  faculty  of  joy ; — 

Joy  and  the  outward  world  must  die  to  him 

As  they  are  dead  to  me." 

What  freak  of  criticism  can  induce  a  man  who  has 
v/ritten  such  poetry  as  this,  to  discard  it,  and  say  it  is  not 
poetry  ?  Mr.  Arnold  is  privileged  to  speak  of  his  own 
poems,  but  no  other  critic  could  speak  so  and  not  be  laughed 
at. 


34°  Literary  Studies. 


We  are  disposed  to  believe  that  no  very  sharp  definition 
can  be  given — at  least  in  the  present  state  of  the  critical  art 
— of  the  boundary  line  between  poetry  and  other  sorts  of 
imaginative  delineation.  Between  the  undoubted  dominions 
of  the  two  kinds  there  is  a  debatable  land ;  everybody  is 
agreed  that  the  "  CEdipus  at  Colonus  "  is  poetry  :  every  one 
is  agreed  that  the  wonderful  appearance  of  Mrs.  Veal l  is  not 
poetry.  But  the  exact  line  which  separates  grave  novels  in 
verse,  like  "Aylmer's  Field"  or  "Enoch  Arden,"  from  grave 
novels  not  in  verse,  like  Silas  Marner  or  Adam  Bede,  we  own 
we  cannot  draw  with  any  confidence.  Nor,  perhaps,  is  it  very 
important ;  whether  a  narrative  is  thrown  into  verse  or  not 
certainly  depends  in  part  on  the  taste  of  the  age,  and  in 
part  on  its  mechanical  helps.  Verse  is  the  only  mechanical 
help  to  the  memory  in  rude  times,  and  there  is  little  writing 
till  a  cheap  something  is  found  to  write  upon,  and  a  cheap 
something  to  write  with.  Poetry — verse,  at  least — is  the 
literature  of  all  work  in  early  ages ;  it  is  only  later  ages 
which  write  in  what  they  think  a  natural  and  simple  prose. 
There  are  other  casual  influences  in  the  matter  too ;  but 
they  are  not  material  now.  We  need  only  say  here  that 
poetry,  because  it  has  a  more  marked  rhythm  than  prose, 
must  be  more  intense  in  meaning  and  more  concise  in  style 
than  prose.  People  expect  a  "  marked  rhythm  "  to  imply 
something  worth  marking ;  if  it  fails  to  do  so  they  are  dis- 
appointed. They  are  displeased  at  the  visible  waste  of  a 
powerful  instrument ;  they  call  it  "  doggerel,"  and  rightly 
fcall  it,  for  the  metrical  expression  of  full  thought  and  eager 
Reeling — the  burst  of  metre — incident  to  high  imagination, 
should  not  be  wasted  on  petty  matters  which  prose  does  as 
well — which  it  does  better — which  it  suits  by  its  very  limp- 
ness and  weakness,  whose  small  changes  it  follows  more 
easily,  and  to  whose  lowest  details  it  can  fully  and  without 
1  De  Foe's. 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          341 

effort  degrade  itself.  Verse,  too,  should  be  more  concise,  for 
long-continued  rhythm  tends  to  jade  the  mind,  just  as  brief 
rhythm  tends  to  attract  the  attention.  Poetry  should  be 
memorable  and  emphatic,  intense,  and gfftfn  over. 

The  great  divisions  of  poetry,  and  of  all  other  literary 
art,  arise  from  the  different  modes  in  which  these  types — 
these  characteristic  men,  these  characteristic  feelings — may 
be  variously  described.  There  are  three  principal  modes 
which  we  shall  attempt  to  describe — the  pure^  which  is 
sometimes,  but  not  very  wisely,  called  the  classical ;  the 
ornate,  which  is  also  unwisely  called  romantic ;  and  the 
grotesque,,  which  might  be  called  the  mediaeval.  We  will 
describe  the  nature  of  these  a  little.  Criticism,  we  know, 
must  be  brief — not,  like  poetry,  because  its  charm  is  too 
intense  to  be  sustained — but,  on  the  contrary,  because  its 
interest  is  too  weak  to  be  prolonged ;  but  elementary  criti- 1 
cism,  if  an  evil,  is  a  necessary  evil ;  a  little  while  spent/ 
among  the  simple  principles  of  art  is  the  first  condition,  the/ 
absolute  pre-requisite,  for  surely  apprehending  and  wisely} 
judging  the  complete  embodiments  and  miscellaneous  forms 
of  actual  literature. 

The  definition  of  pure  literature  is,  that  it  describes  the\ 
type  in  its  simplicity — we  mean,  with  the  exact  amount  q/\ 
accessory  circumstance  which  is  necessary  to  bring  it  before  1 
the  mind    in   finished    perfection,   and   no  more  than   that  I 
amount.     The  type  needs  some  accessories  from  its  rrSTtire 
— a  picturesque  landscape  does  not  consist  wholly  of  pictur- 
esque features.     There  is  a  setting  of  surroundings — as  the 
Americans  would  say,  of  fixings — without  which  the  reality 
is  not  itself.     By  a  traditional  mode  of  speech,  as  soon  as 
we  see  a  picture  in  which  a  complete  effect  is  produced  by 
detail  so  rare  and  so  harmonised  as  to  escape  us,  we  say, 
How  "  classical "  !     The  whole  which  is  to  be  seen  appears  at 
once  and  through  the  detail,  but  the  detail  itself  is  not  seen : 


342  Literary  Studies. 


we  do  not  think  of  that  which  gives  us  the  idea ;  we  are  ab- 
sorbed in  the  idea  itself.  Just  so  in  literature,  the  pure  art 
is  that  which  works  with  the  fewest  strokes ;  the  fewest,  that 
is,  for  its  purpose,  for  its  aim  is  to  call  up  and  bring  home  to 
men  an  idea,  a  form,  a  character,  and  if  that  idea  be  twisted, 
that  form  be  involved,  that  character  perplexed,  many  strokes 
f  literary  art  will  be  needful.  Pure  art  does  not  mutilate 
ts  object ;  it  represents  it  as  fully  as  is  possible  with  the 
'slightest  effort  which  is  possible :  it  shrinks  from  no  needful 
circumstances,  as  little  as  it  inserts  any  which  are  needless. 
The  precise  peculiarity  is  not  merely  that  no  incidental 
circumstance  is  inserted  which  does  not  tell  on  the  main 
design — no  art  is  fit  to  be  called  art  which  permits  a  stroke 
to  be  put  in  without  an  object — but  that  only  the  minimum 
of  such  circumstance  is  inserted  at  all.  The  form  is  some- 
times said  to  be  bare,  the  accessories  are  sometimes  said  to 
be  invisible,  because  the  appendages  are  so  choice  that  the 
shape  only  is  perceived. 

The  English  literature  undoubtedly  contains  much  im- 
pure literature — impure  in  its  style,  if  not  in  its  meaning — 
but  it  also  contains  one  great,  one  nearly  perfect,  model  of 
he  pure  style  in  the  literary  expression  of  typical  sentiment  ; 
md  one  not  perfect,  but  gigantic  and  close  approximation 
o  perfection  in  the  pure  delineation  of  objective  character. 
Wordsworth,  perhaps,  comes  as  near  to  choice  purity  of 
style  in  sentiment  as  is  possible  ;  Milton,  with  exceptions 
md  conditions  to  be  explained,  approaches  perfection  by  the 
strenuous  purity  with  which  he  depicts  character. 

A  wit  once  said,  that  "pretty  women  had  more  features 
than  beautiful  women,"  and  though  the  expression  may  be 
criticised,  the  meaning  is  correct.  Pretty  women  seem  to 
have  a  great  number  of  attractive  points,  each  of  which 
attracts  your  attention,  and  each  one  of  which  you  remem- 
ber afterwards ;  yet  these  points  have  not  grown  together, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          343 

their  features  have  not  linked  themselves  into  a  single  in- 
separable whole.  But  a  beautiful  woman  is  a  whole  as  she 
is ;  you  no  more  take  her  to  pieces  than  a  Greek  statue ;  she 
is  not  an  aggregate  of  divisible  charms,  she  is  a  charm  in 
herself.  Such  ever  is  the  dividinetest  of  pure  art ;  if  you 
catch  yourself  admiring  its  details,  it  isaefective;  you  ought 
to  think  of  it  as  a  single  whole  which  you  must  remember, 
which  you  must  admire,  which  somehow  subdues  you  while 
you  admire  it,  which  is  a  "possession"  to  you  "for  ever". 

Of  course,  no  individual  poem  embodies  this  ideal  per- 
fectly; of  course,  every  human  word  and  phrase  has  its 
imperfections,  and  if  we  choose  an  instance  to  illustrate  that 
ideal,  the  instance  has  scarcely  a  fair  chance.  By  contrasting 
it  with  the  ideal,  we  suggest  its  imperfections;  by  protruding 
it  as  an  example,  we  turn  on  its  defectiveness  the  microscope 
of  criticism.  Yet  these  two  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  may  be 
fitly  read  in  this  place,  not  because  they  are  quite  without 
faults,  or  because  they  are  the  very  best  examples  of  their 
kind  of  style,  but  because  they  are  luminous  examples ;  the 
compactness  of  the  sonnet  and  the  gravity  of  the  sentiment, 
hedging  in  the  thoughts,  restraining  the  fancy,  and  helping 
to  maintain  a  singleness  of  expression. 


"  THE    TROSSACHS. 

1  There's  not  a  nook  within  this  solemn  pass, 
But  were  an  apt  confessional  for  one 
Taught  by  his  summer  spent,  his  autumn  gone, 
That  life  is  but  a  tale  of  morning  grass 
Withered  at  eve.     From  scenes  of  art  which  chase 
That  thought  away,  turn,  and  with  watchful  eyes 
Feed  it  'mid  Nature's  old  felicities, 
Rocks,  rivers,  and  smooth  lakes  more  clear  than  glass 
Untouched,  unbreathed  upon.     Thrice  happy  guest, 
If  from  a  golden  perch  of  aspen  spray 


344  Literary  Studies. 


(October's  workmanship  to  rival  May) 
The  pensive  warbler  of  the  ruddy  breast 
That  moral  sweeten  by  a  heaven-taught  lay 
Lulling  the  year,  with  all  its  cares,  to  rest !  " 

"COMPOSED  UPON  WESTMINSTER  BRIDGE,  SEPT.  3,  1802. 

"  Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair : 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 
A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty : 
This  city  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning  ;  silent,  bare, 
Ships,  towers,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples  lie 
Open  unto  the  fields  and  to  the  sky ; 
All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 
Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 
In  his  first  splendour,  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 
Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep  ! 
The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will : 
Dear  God !     The  very  houses  seem  asleep  ; 
And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still !  " 

Instances  of  barer  style  than  this  may  easily  be  found, 
instances  of  colder  style — few  better  instances  of  purer  style. 
Not  a  single  expression  (the  invocation  in  the  concluding 
couplet  of  the  second  sonnet  perhaps  excepted)  can  be  spared, 
yet  not  a  single  expression  rivets  the  attention.  If,  indeed, 
we  take  out  the  phrase — 

"  The  city  now  doth,  like  a  garment,  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning," 

and  the  description  of  the  brilliant  yellow  of  autumn — 
"  October's  workmanship  to  rival  May," 

they  have  independent  value,  but  they  are  not  noticed  in  the 
sonnet  when  we  read  it  through  ;  they  fall  into  place  there, 
and  being  in  their  place,  are  not  seen.  The  great  subjects 
of  the  two  sonnets,  the  religious  aspect  of  beautiful  but 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          345 

grave  Nature — the  religious  aspect  of  a  city  about  to  awaken 
and  be  alive,  are  the  only  ideas  left  in  our  mind.  To 
Wordsworth  has  been  vouchsafed  the  last  grace  of  the  self- 
denying  artist ;  you  think  neither  of  him  nor  his  style,  but 
you  cannot  help  thinking  of — you  must  recall — the  exact 
phrase,  the  very  sentiment  he  wished. 

Milton's  purity  is  more  eager.  In  the  most  exciting 
parts  of  Wordsworth — and  these  sonnets  are  not  very  ax- 
citing — you  always  feel,  you  never  forget,  that  what  yop 
have  before  you  is  the  excitement  of  a  recluse.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  stir  of  life  ;  nothing  of  the  brawl  of  the  world. 
But  Milton,  though  always  a  scholar  by  trade,  though  soli- 
tary in  old  age,  was  through  life  intent  on  great  affairs,  lived 
close  to  great  scenes,  watched  a  revolution,  and  if  not  an 
actor  in  it,  was  at  least  secretary  to  the  actors.  He  was 
familiar — by  daily  experience  and  habitual  sympathy — with 
the  earnest  debate  of  arduous  questions,  on  which  the  life 
and  death  of  the  speakers  certainly  depended,  on  which  the 
weal  or  woe  of  the  country  perhaps  depended.  He  knew 
how  profoundly  the  individual  character  of  the  speakers — 
their  inner  and  real  nature — modifies  their  opinion  on  such 
questions  ;  he  knew  how  surely  that  nature  will  appear  in 
the  expression  of  them.  This  great  experience,  fashioned 
by  a  fine  imagination,  gives  to  the  debate  of  the  Satanic 
Council  in  Pandaemonium  its  reality  and  its  life.  It  is  a 
debate  in  the  Long  Parliament,  and  though  the  theme  of 
"Paradise  Lost"  obliged  Milton  to  side  with  the  mon- 
archical element  in  the  universe,  his  old  habits  are  often 
too  much  for  him  ;  and  his  real  sympathy — the  impetus  and 
energy  of  his  nature — side  with  the  rebellious  element. 
For  the  purposes  of  art  this  is  much  better.  Of  a  court, 
a  poet  can  make  but  little ;  of  a  heaven,  he  can  make  very 
little ;  but  of  a  courtly  heaven,  such  as  Milton  conceived, 
he  can  make  nothing  at  all.  The  idea  of  a  court  and  the 


346  Literary  Studies. 


idea  of  a  heaven  are  so  radically  different,  that  a  distinct 
combination  of  them  is  always  grotesque  and  often  ludicrous. 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  as  a  whole,  is  radically  tainted  by  a  vicious 
principle.  It  professes  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  to 
account  for  sin  and  death,  and  it  tells  you  that  the  whole  ori- 
ginated in  a  political  event ;  in  a  court  squabble  as  to  a 
particular  act  of  patronage  and  the  due  or  undue  promotion 
of  an  eldest  son.  Satan  may  have  been  wrong,  but  on  Milton's 
theory  he  had  an  arguable  case  at  least.  There  was  some- 
thing arbitrary  in  the  promotion ;  there  were  little  symp- 
toms of  a  job;  in  "Paradise  Lost"  it  is  always  clear  that 
the  devils  are  the  weaker,  but  it  is  never  clear  that  the 
angels  are  the  better.  Milton's  sympathy  and  his  im- 
agination slip  back  to  the  Puritan  rebels  whom  he  loved, 
and  desert  the  courtly  angels  whom  he  could  not  love, 
although  he  praised  them.  There  is  no  wonder  that  Milton's 
hell  is  better  than  his  heaven,  for  he  hated  officials  and  he 
loved  rebels, — he  employs  his  genius  below,  and  accumu- 
lates his  pedantry  above.  On  the  great  debate  in  Pandas- 
monium  all  his  genius  is  concentrated.  The  question  is 
very  practical ;  it  is,  "  What  are  we  devils  to  do,  now  we 
have  lost  heaven  ?  "  Satan,  who  presides  over  and  mani- 
pulates the  assembly ;  Moloch, 

"  The  fiercest  spirit 
That  fought  in  Heaven,  now  fiercer  by  despair," 

who  wants  to  fight  again  ;  Belial,  "the  man  of  the  world," 
who  does  not  want  to  fight  any  more;  Mammon,  who  is 
for  commencing  an  industrial  career  ;  Beelzebub,  the  official 
statesman, 

"  Deep  on  his  front  engraven, 
Deliberation  sat  and  Public  care," 

who,  at  Satan's  instance,  proposes  the  invasion  of  earth, — 
are  as  distinct  as  so  many  statues.  Even  Belial,  "  the  man 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          347 

of  the  world,"  the  sort  of  man  with  whom  Milton  had  least 
sympathy,  is  perfectly  painted.  An  inferior  artist  would 
have  made  the  actor  who  "counselled  ignoble  ease  and 
peaceful  sloth,"  a  degraded  and  ugly  creature ;  but  Milton 
knew  better.  lie  knew  that  low  notions  require  a  betten 
garb  than  high  notions.  Human  nature  is  not  a  high  thingJ 
but  at  least  it  has  a  high  idea  of  itself;  it  will  not  accepj 
mean  maxims,  unless  they  are  gilded  and  made  beautiful} 
A  prophet  in  goatskin  may  cry,  "  Repent,  repent,"  but  it 
takes  "  purple  and  fine  linen  "  to  be  able  to  say,  "  Continue 
in  your  sins".  The  world  vanquishes  with  its  speciousness 
and  its  show,  and  the  orator  who  is  to  persuade  men  to 
worldliness  must  have  a  share  in  them.  Milton  well  knew 
this;  after  the  warlike  speech  of  the  fierce  Moloch,  he 
introduces  a  brighter  and  a  more  graceful  spirit. 

"  He  ended  frowning,  and  his  look  denounced 
Desp'rate  revenge,  and  battle  dangerous 
To  less  than  Gods.     On  th'  other  side  up  rose 
Belial,  in  act  more  graceful  and  humane : 
A  fairer  person  lost  not  Heaven ;  he  seem'd 
For  dignity  composed  and  high  exploit : 
But  all  was  false  and  hollow,  though  his  tongue 
Dropt  manna,  and  could  make  the  worse  appear 
The  better  reason,  to  perplex  and  dash 
Matures!  counsels ;  for  his  thoughts  were  low , 
To  vice  industrious,  but  to  nobler  deeds 
Tim'rous  and  slothful :  yet  he  pleased  the  ear, 
And  with  persuasive  accent  thus  began  :  " 

He  does  not  begin  like  a  man  with  a  strong  case,  but 
like  a  man  with  a  weak  case  ;  he  knows  that  the  pride  of 
human  nature  is  irritated  by  mean  advice,  and  though 
he  may  probably  persuade  men  to  take  it,  he  must  carefully 
apologise  for  giving  it.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  though  the 
formal  address  is  to  devils,  the  real  address  is  to  men : 


348  Literary  Studies. 

to  the  human  nature  which  we  know,  not  to  the  fictitious 
diabolic  nature  we  do  not  know. 

' '  I  should  be  much  for  open  war,  O  Peers 
As  not  behind  in  hate,  if  what  was  urged 
Main  reason  to  persuade  immediate  war, 
Did  not  dissuade  me  most,  and  seem  to  cast 
Ominous  conjecture  on  the  whole  success : 
When  he  who  most  excels  in  fact  of  arms, 
In  what  he  counsels,  and  in  what  excels 
Mistrustful,  grounds  his  courage  on  despair, 
And  utter  dissolution,  as  the  scope 
Of  all  his  aim,  after  some  dire  revenge. 
First,  what  revenge  ?     The  tow'rs  of  Heav'n  are  fill'd 
With  armed  watch,  that  render  all  access 
Impregnable  ;  oft  on  the  bord'ring  deep 
Encamp  their  legions,  or  with  obscure  wing 
Scout  far  and  wide  into  the  realm  of  night, 
Scorning  surprise.     Or  could  we  break  our  way 
By  force,  and  at  our  heels  all  Hell  should  rise 
With  blackest  insurrection,  to  confound 
Heav'n's  purest  light,  yet  our  Great  Enemy, 
All  incorruptible,  would  on  His  throne 
Sit  unpolluted,  and  th'  ethereal  mould 
Incapable  of  stain  would  soon  expel 
Her  mischief,  and  purge  off  the  baser  fire 
Victorious.     Thus  repulsed,  our  final  hope 
Is  flat  despair.     We  must  exasperate 
Th'  Almighty  Victor  to  spend  all  His  rage, 
And  that  must  end  us  :  that  must  be  our  cure, 
To  be  no  more  ?     Sad  cure  ;  for  who  would  lose, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity, 
To  perish  rather,  swallow'd  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night, 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion  ?     And  who  knows, 
Let  this  be  good,  whether  our  angry  Foe 
Can  give  it,  or  will  ever  ?     How  He  can 
Is  doubtful ;  that  He  never  will  is  sure. 
Will  He,  so  wise,  let  loose  at  once  His  ire 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          349 

Belike  through  impotence,  or  unaware, 
To  give  His  enemies  their  wish,  and  end 
Them  in  His  anger,  whom  His  anger  saves 
To  punish  endless  ?     Wherefore  cease  we  then  ? 
Say  they  who  counsel  war,  we  are  decreed, 
Reserved,  and  destined,  to  eternal  woe ; 
Whatever  doing,  what  can  we  suffer  more, 
What  can  we  suffer  worse  ?     Is  this  then  worst, 
Thus  sitting,  thus  consulting,  thus  in  arms  ?  " 


And  so  on. 

Mr.  Pitt  knew  this  speech  by  heart,  and  Lord  Macaulay 
has  called  it  incomparable  ;  and  these  judges  of  the  oratorical 
art  have  well  decided.  A  mean  foreign  policy  cannot  be 
better  defended.  Its  sensibleness  is  effectually  explained, 
and  its  tameness  as  much  as  possible  disguised. 

But  we  have  not  here  to  do  with  the  excellence  of  Belial's 
policy,  but  with  the  excellence  of  his  speech  ;  and  with  that 
speech  in  a  peculiar  manner.  This  speech,  taken  with  the 
few  lines  of  description  with  which  Milton  introduces  them, 
embody,  in  as  short  a  space  as  possible,  with  as  much  per- 
fection as  possible,  the  delineation  of  the  type  of  character 
common  at  all  times,  dangerous  in  many  times ;  sure  to 
come  to  the  surface  in  moments  of  difficulty,  and  never 
more  dangerous  than  then.  As  Milton  describes  it,  it  is  one 
among  several  typical  characters  which  will  ever  have  their 
place  in  great  councils,  which  will  ever  be  heard  at  important 
decisions,  which  are  part  of  the  characteristic  and  inalienable 
whole  of  this  statesmanlike  world.  The  debate  in  Pandae- 
monium  is  a  debate  among  these  typical  characters  at  the 
greatest  conceivable  crisis,  and  with  adjuncts  of  solemnity 
which  no  other  situation  could  rival.  It  is  the  greatest 
classical  triumph,  the  highest  achievement  of  the  pure  style 
in  English  literature ;  it  is  the  greatest  description  of  the 


350  Literary  Studies. 


highest  and  most  typical  characters  with  the  most  choice 
circumstances  and  in  the  fewest  words. 

It  is  not  unremarkable  that  we  should  find  in  Milton  and 
in  "Paradise  Lost"  the  best  specimen  of  pure  style.    Milton 
was  a  schoolmaster  in  a  pedantic  age,  and  there  is  nothing 
so  unclassical — nothing  so  impure  in   style — as  pedantry. 
The  out-of-door  conversational  life  of  Athens  was  as  opposed 
to  bookish  scholasticism  as  a  life  can  be.     The  most  perfect 
jibooks  have  been  written  not  by  those  who  thought  much  of 
Ipooks,  but  by  those  who  thought  little,  by  those  who  were 
mnder  the  restraint  of  a  sensitive  talking  world,  to  which 
Ibooks  had  contributed  something,  and  a  various,  eager  life 
'the  rest.     Milton  is  generally  unclassical  in  spirit  where  he 
is  learned,  and  naturally,  because  the  purest  poets  do  not 
overlay   their   conceptions   with    book-knowledge,    and   the 
classical  poets,  having  in  comparison  no  books,  were  under 
little  temptation  to  impair  the  purity  of  their  style  by  the 
accumulation  of  their  research.     Over  and  above  this,  there 
is  in  Milton,  and  a  little  in  Wordsworth  also,  one  defect 
which  is  in  the  highest  degree  faulty  and  unclassical,  which 
mars  the  effect  and  impairs  the  perfection  of  the  pure  style. 
Th^re  is  a  want  of  spontaneity,  and  a  sense  of  effort.     It  has 
been  nap^pTty'aaid  that  Plato's  words  must  have  grown  into 
icir  places.  No  one  would  say  so  of  Milton  or  even  of  Words- 
orth.     About  both  of  them   there  is  a  taint  of  duty ;    a 
icious  sense  of  the  good  man's  task.     Things  seem  right 
here  they  are,  but  they  seem  to  be  put  where  they  are. 
lexibility  is  essential  to  the  consummate  perfection  of  the 
ure  style,  because  the  sensation  of  the  poet's  efforts  carries 
/a^vay  our  thoughts  from  his  achievements.     We  are  admir- 
inghisTabours  when  we  should  be  enjoying  his  words.    But 
this  is  a  defect  in  those  two  writers,  not  a  defect  in  pure  art. 
Of  course  it  is  more  difficult  to  write  in  few  words  than  to 
write  in  many;    to  take  the  best  adjuncts,  and  those  only, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          351 

for  what  you  have  to  say,  instead  of  using  all  which  comes 
to  hand :  it  is  an  additional  labour  if  you  write  verses  in  a 
morning,  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  in  choosing,  that  is,  in 
making  those  verses  fewer.  But  a  perfect  artist  in  the  pure 
style  is  as  effortless  and  as  natural  as  in  any  style,  perhaps 
is  more  so.  Take  the  well-known  lines  : — 

"  There  was  a  little  lawny  islet 
By  anemone  and  violet, 

Like  mosaic,  paven : 
And  its  roof  was  flowers  and  leaves 
Which  the  summer's  breath  enweaves, 
Where  nor  sun,  nor  showers,  nor  breeze, 
Pierce  the  pines  and  tallest  trees, 

Each  a  gem  engraven : 
Girt  by  many  an  azure  wave 
With  which  the  clouds  and  mountains  pave 

A  lake's  blue  chasm  ". 1 

Shelley  had  many  merits  and  many  defects.      This  is 
not  the  place  for  a  complete,  or  indeed  for  any,  estimate  of 
him.     But  one  excellence  is  most  evident.     His  words  are 
as  flexible  as  any  words  ;    the  rhythm  of  some  modulatinj 
air  seems  to  move  them  into  their  place  without  a  struggl 
by  the  poet,  and  almost  without  his  knowledge.     This  i 
the  perfection  of  pure  art,  to  embody  typical  conceptions  in 
the  choicest,  the  fewest  accidents,  to  embody  them  so  tha : 
each  of  these  accidents  may  produce  its  full  effect,  and  so  t 
embody  them  without  effort. 

The  extreme  opposite  to  this  pure  art  is  what  may  be 
called  ornate  art.  This  species  of  art  aims  also  at  giving 
a  delineation  of  the  typical  idea  in  its  perfection  and  its 
fulness,  but  it  aims  at  so  doing  in  a  manner  most  different. 
It  wishes  to  surround  the  type  with  the  greatest  numhef<jf 
circumstances  which  it  will  bear.  It  works  not  by  choice 

1M  The  Isle." 


352  Literary  Studies. 


and  selection,  but  by  accumulation  and  aggregation.  The 
idea  is  not,  as  in  the  pure  style,  presented  with  the  least 
clothing  which  it  will  endure,  but  with  the  richest  and  most 
involved  clothing  that  it  will  admit. 

We  are  fortunate  in  not  having  to  hunt  out  of  past 
literature  an  illustrative  specimen  of  the  ornate  style.  Mr. 
Tennyson  has  just  given  one  admirable  in  itself,  and  most 
characteristic  of  the  defects  and  the  merits  of  this  style. 
The  story  of  "  Enoch  Arden,"  as  he  has  enhanced  and  pre- 
sented it,  is  a  rich  and  splendid  composite  of  imagery  and 
illustration.  Yet  how  simple  that  story  is  in  itself!  A 
sailor  who  sells  fish,  breaks  his  leg,  gets  dismal,  gives  up 
selling  fish,  goes  to  sea,  is  wrecked  on  a  desert  island,  stays 
there  some  years,  on  his  return  finds  his  wife  married  to  a 
miller,  speaks  to  a  landlady  on  the  subject,  and  dies.  Told 
in  the  pure  and  simple,  the  unadorned  and  classical  style, 
this  story  would  not  have  taken  three  pages,  but  Mr.  Tenny- 
son has  been  able  to  make  it  the  principal — the  largest  tale 
in  his  new  volume.  He  has  done  so  only  by  giving  to 
every  event  and  incident  in  the  volume  an  accompanying 
commentary.  He  tells  a  great  deal  about  the  torrid  zone, 
which  a  rough  sailor  like  Enoch  Arden  certainly  would  not 
have  perceived ;  and  he  gives  to  the  fishing  village,  to 
which  all  the  characters  belong,  a  softness  and  a  fascination 
which  such  villages  scarcely  possess  in  reality. 

The  description  of  the  tropical  island  on  which  the 
sailor  is  thrown,  is  an  absolute  model  of  adorned  art : — 

"  The  mountain  wooded  to  the  peak,  the  lawns 
And  winding  glades  high  up  like  ways  to  Heaven, 
The  slender  coco's  drooping  crown  of  plumes, 
The  lightning  flash  of  insect  and  of  bird. 
The  lustre  of  the  long  convolvuluses 
That  coil'd  around  the  stately  stems,  and  ran 
Ev'n  to  the  limit  of  the  land,  the  glows 
And  glories  of  the  broad  belt  of  the  world, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          353 


All  these  he  saw ;  but  what  he  fain  had  seen 

He  could  not  see,  the  kindly  human  face, 

Nor  ever  hear  a  kindly  voice,  but  heard 

The  myriad  shriek  of  wheeling  ocean-fowl, 

The  league-long  roller  thundering  on  the  reef, 

The  moving  whisper  of  huge  trees  that  branch'd 

And  blossom'd  in  the  zenith,  or  the  sweep 

Of  some  precipitous  rivulet  to  the  wave, 

As  down  the  shore  he  ranged,  or  all  day  long 

Sat  often  in  the  seaward-gazing  gorge, 

A  shipwreck'd  sailor,  waiting  for  a  sail : 

No  sail  from  day  to  day,  but  every  day 

The  sunrise  broken  into  scarlet  shafts 

Among  the  palms  and  ferns  and  precipices ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  east ; 

The  blaze  upon  his  island  overhead ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  west ; 

Then  the  great  stars  that  globed  themselves  in  Heaven, 

The  hollower-bellowing  ocean,  and  again 

The  scarlet  shafts  of  sunrise — but  no  sail  ". 

No  expressive  circumstances  can  be  added  to  this  descrip- 
tion, no  enhancing  detail  suggested.  A  much  less  happy 
instance  is  the  description  of  Enoch's  life  before  he  sailed: — 

"  While  Enoch  was  abroad  on  wrathful  seas, 
Or  often  journeying  landward  ;  for  in  truth 
Enoch's  white  horse,  and  Enoch's  ocean  spoil 
In  ocean-smelling  osier,  and  his  face, 
Rough-redden'd  with  a  thousand  winter  gales, 
Not  only  to  the  market-cross  were  known, 
But  in  the  leafy  lanes  behind  the  down, 
Far  as  the  portal-warding  lion-whelp, 
And  peacock  yew-tree  of  the  lonely  Hall, 
Whose  Friday  fare  was  Enoch's  ministering". 

So  much  has  not  often  been  made  of  selling  fish.  The, 
essence  of  ornate  art  is  in  this  manner  to  accumulate  round 
the  typical  object,  everything  which  can  be  said  about  it, 
every  associated  thought  that  can  be  connected  with  it,  wjth- 
out  impairing  the  essence  of  the  delineation. 
VOL.  ii.  23 


354  Literary  Studies. 


The  first  defect  which  strikes  a  student  of  ornate  art — the 
first  which  arrests  the  mere  reader  of  it — is  what  is  called  a 
want  of  simplicity.  Nothing  is  described  as  it  is;  everything 
has  about  it  an  atmosphere<s£  something  else.  The  com- 
bined and  associated  thoughts,  though  they  set  off  and 
heighten  particular  ideas  and  aspects  of  the  central  and 
typical  conception,  yet  compjjcate  it:  a  simple  thing — "a 
daisy  by  the  river's  brirrT'-^isnever  left  by  itself,  something 
else  is  put  with  it ;  something  not  more  connected  with 
it  than  "  lion-whelp  "  and  the  "  peacock  yew-tree  "  are  with 
the  "  fresh  fish  for  sale "  that  Enoch  carries  past  them. 
Even  in  the  highest  cases,  ornate  art  leaves  upon  a  cultured 
and  delicate  taste,  the  conviction  that  it  is  not  the  highest 
art,  that  it  is  somehow  excessive  and  over-rich,  that  it  is  not 
chaste  in  itself  or  chastening  to  the  mind  that  sees  it — that 
it  is  in  an  explained  manner  unsatisfactory,  "a  thing  in 
which  we  feel  there  is  some  hidden  want !  " 

That  want  is  a  want  of  "  definition  ".  We  must  all 
know  landscapes,  river  landscapes  especially,  which  are  in 
the  highest  sense  beautiful,  which  when  we  first  see  them 
give  us  a  delicate  pleasure ;  which  in  some — and  these  the 
best  cases — give  even  a  gentle  sense  of  surprise  that  such 
things  should  be  so  beautiful,  and  yet  when  we  come  to  live 
in  them,  to  spend  even  a  few  hours  in  them,  we  seem  stifled 
and  oppressed.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  people  to  whom 
the  sea-shore  is  a  companion,  an  exhilaration ;  and  not  so 
much  for  the  brawl  of  the  shore  as  for  the  limited  vastness, 
the  finite  infinite  of  the  ocean  as  they  see  it.  Such  people 
often  come  home  braced  and  nerved,  and  if  they  spoke  out 
the  truth,  would  have  only  to  say,  "  We  have  seen  the 
horizon  line";  if  they  were  let  alone  indeed,  they  would  gaze 
on  it  hour  after  hour,  so  great  to  them  is  the  fascination, 
so  full  the  sustaining  calm,  which  they  gain  from  that  union 
of  form  and  greatness.  To  a  very  inferior  extent,  but  still. 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          355 

perhaps,  to  an  extent  which  most  people  understand  better, 
a  common  arch  will  have  the  same  effect.  A  bridge  com- 
pletes a  river  landscape  ;  if  of  the  old  and  many-arched  sort, 
it  regulates  by  a  long  series  of  defined  forms  the  vague 
outline  of  wood  and  river,  which  before  had  nothing  to 
measure  it;  if  of  the  new  scientific  sort,  it  introduces  still 
more  strictly  a  geometrical  element ;  it  stiffens  the  scenery 
which  was  before  too  soft,  too  delicate,  too  vegetable.  Just 
such  is  the  effect  of  pure  style  in  literary  art.  It  calrnsby 
conciseness  ;  while  the  ornate  style  leaves  on  the  mind  a 
mist  of  beauty,  an  excess  of  fascination,  a  complication  of 
charm,  the  pure  style  leaves  behind  it  the  simple,  defined, 
measured  idea,  as  it  is,  and  by  itself.  That  which  is  chaste 
chastens  ;  there  is  a  poised  energy — a  state  half  thrill,  half 
tranquillity — which  pure  art  gives,  which  no  other  can  give  ; 
a  pleasure  justified  as  well  as  felt ;  an  ennobled  satisfaction 
at  what  ought  to  satisfy  us,  and  must  ennoble  us. 

Ornate  art  is  to  pure  art  what  a  painted  statue  is  to  an 
unpainted.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  a  touch  of  colour 
does  bring  out  certain  parts;  does  convey  certain  expres- 
sions ;  does  heighten  certain  features,  but  it  leaves  on  the 
work  as  a  whole,  a  want,  as  we  say,  "of  something";  a 
want  of  that  inseparable  chasteness  which  clings  to  simple 
sculpture,  an  impairing  predominance  of  alluring  details 
which  impairs  our  satisfaction  with  our  own  satisfaction  ; 
which  makes  us  doubt  whether  a  higher  being  than  ourselves 
will  be  satisfied  even  though  we  are  so.  In  the  very  same 
manner,  though  the  rouge  of  ornate  literature  excites  ^o 
eye,  it  also  impairs  our  confidence. 

Mr.  Arnold  has  justly  observed  that  this  self-justifying, 
self-proving  purity  of  style  is  commoner  in  ancient  literature 
than  in  modern  literature,  and  also  that  Shakespeare  is  not 
a  great  or  an  unmixed  example  of  it.  No  one  can  say  that 
he  is,  His  works  are  full  of  undergrowth,  are  full  of  com- 


356  Literary  Studies. 


plexity,  are  not  models  of  style  ;  except  by  a  miracle,  nothing 
in  the  Elizabethan  age   could   be   a   model   of  style ;    the 
restraining  taste  of  that  age  was  feebler  and  more  mistaken 
than   that  of  any  other  equally  great  age.      Shakespeare's 
mind  so  teemed  with  creation  that  he  required  the  most  just, 
most  forcible,  most  constant  restraint  from   without.     He 
most  needed  to  be  guided  among  poets,  and  he  was  the  least 
and  worst  guided.     As  a  whole  no  one  can  call  his  works 
finished  models  of  the  pure  style,  or  of  any  style.     But  he 
has  many  passages  of  the  most  pure  style,  passages  which 
could  be  easily  cited  if  space  served.     And   we  must   re- 
member that   the  task  which    Shakespeare   undertook  was 
the  most  difficult  which  any  poet  has  ever  attempted,  and 
that  it  is  a  task  in  which  after  a  million  efforts  every  other 
poet  has  failed.     The  Elizabethan  drama — as  Shakespeare 
has   immortalised  it— undertakes  to  delineate  in  five  acts, 
under  stage  restrictions,  and  in  mere  dialogue,  a  whole  list 
of  dramatis  personce,  a  set  of  characters  enough  for  a  modern 
novel,  and  with  the  distinctness  of  a  modern  novel.    Shake- 
speare is  not  content  to  give  two  or  three  great  characters  in 
solitude  and  in  dignity,  like  the  classical    dramatists  ;    he 
wishes  to  give  a  whole  party  of  characters  in  the  play  of 
life,  and  according  to  the  nature  of  each.     He  would  "  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  nature,"  not  to  catch  a  monarch  in  a  tragic 
posture,  but  a  whole  group  of  characters  engaged  in  many 
ctions,  intent  on  many  purposes,  thinking  many  thoughts, 
here  is  life  enough,  there  is  action  enough,  in  single  plays 
f  Shakespeare   to  set  up  an  ancient  dramatist  for  a  long 
ireer.     And  Shakespeare  succeeded.     His  characters,  taken 
*  masse,  and  as  a  whole,  are  as  well  known  as  any  novelist's 
haracters  ;  cultivated  men  know  all  about  them,  as  young 
idies  know  all  about  Mr.  Trollope's  novels.     But  no  other 
dramatist   has  succeeded  in  such  an  aim.       No  one  else's 
characters  are  staple  people  in  English  literature,  hereditary 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          357 

people  whom  every  one  knows  all  about  in  every  generation. 
The  contemporary  dramatists,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Ben 
Jonson,  Marlowe,  etc.,  had  many  merits,  some  of  them  were 
great  men.  But  a  critic  must  say  of  them  the  worst  thing  he 
has  to  say :  "  They  were  men  who  failed  in  their  character- 
istic aim  " ;  they  attempted  to  describe  numerous  sets  of 
complicated  characters,  and  they  failed.  No  one  of  such 
characters,  or  hardly  one,  lives  in  common  memory ;  the 
"Faustus"  of  Marlowe,  a  really  great  idea,  is  not  remembered. 
They  undertook  to  write  what  they  could  not  write — five 
acts  full  of  real  characters,  and  in  consequence,  the  fine 
individual  things  they  conceived  are  forgotten  by  the  mixed 
multitude,  and  known  only  to  a  few  of  the  few.  Of  the 
Spanish  theatre  we  cannot  speak;  but  there  are  no  such 
characters  in  any  French  tragedy :  the  whole  aim  of  that 
tragedy  forbad  it.  Goethe  has  added  to  literature  a  few 
great  characters;  he  may  be  said  almost  to  have  added  to 
literature  the  idea  of  "  intellectual  creation," — the  idea  of 
describing  the  great  characters  through  the  intellect ;  but  he 
has  not  added  to  the  common  stock  what  Shakespeare 
added,  a  new  multitude  of  men  and  women ;  and  these  not 
in  simple  attitudes,  but  amid  the  most  complex  parts  of  life, 
with  all  their  various  natures  roused,  mixed,  and  strained. 
The  severest  art  must  have  allowed  many  details,  much 
overflowing  circumstance,  to  a  poet  who  undertook  to 
describe  what  almost  defies  description.  Pure  art  would 
have  commanded  him  to  use  details  lavishly,  for  only  by  a 
multiplicity  of  such  could  the  required  effect  have  been  at  all 
produced.  Shakespeare  could  accomplish  it,  for  his  mind 
was  a  spring,  an  inexhaustible  fountain,  of  human  nature, 
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  being  compelled  by  the  task  of  his 
time  to  let  the  fulness  of  his  nature  overflow,  he  sometimes 
let  it  overflow  too  much,  and  covered  with  erroneous  conceits 
and  superfluous  images  characters  and  conceptions  which 


358  Literary  Studies. 


would  have  been  far  more  justly,  far  more  effectually, 
delineated  with  conciseness  and  simplicity.  But  there  is  an 
infinity  of  pure  art  in  Shakespeare,  although  there  is  a  great 
deal  else  also. 

It  will  be  said,  if  ornate  art  be,  as  you  say,  an  inferior 
fcpecies  of  art,  why  should  it  ever  be  used  ?  If  pure  art  be 
ihe  best  sort  of  art,  why  should  it  not  always  be  used  ? 

^^PiTCTeftsoriis  this  :  literary  art,  as  we  just  now  explained, 
is  concerned  with  literatesque  characters  in  literatesque 
situations ;  and  the  best  art  is  concerned  with  the  most 
literatesque  characters  in  the  most  literatesque  situations. 
Such  are  the  subjects  of  pure  art ;  it  embodies  with  the 
fewest  touches,  and  under  the  most  select  and  choice 
circumstances,  the  highest  conceptions ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  only  the  best  subjects  are  to  be  treated  by  art, 
and  then  only  in  the  very  best  way.  Human  nature  could 
not  endure  such  a  critical  commandment  as  that,  and  it 
would  be  an  erroneous  criticism  which  gave  it.  Any 
literatesque  character  may  be  described  in  literature  under 
any  circumstances  which  exhibit  its  literatesqueness. 

The  essence  of  pure  art  consists  in  its  describing  what 
is  as  it  is,  and  this  is  very  well  for  what  can  bear  it,  but 
there  are  many  inferior  things  which  will  not  bear  it,  and 
which  nevertheless  ought  to  be  described  in  books.  A 
certain  kind  of  literature  deals  with  illusions,  and  this  kind 
of  literature  has  given  a  colouring  to  the  name  romantic. 
A  man  of  rare  genius,  and  even  of  poetical  genius,  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  make  these  illusions  the  true  subject  of  poetry — 
almost  the  sole  subject. 

"  Without,"  says  Father  Newman,  of  one  of  his  characters,1  "  being 
himself  a  poet,  he  was  in  the  season  of  poetry,  in  the  sweet  spring-time, 
when  the  year  is  most  beautiful  because  it  is  new.  Novelty  was  beauty 
to  a  heart  so  open  and  cheerful  as  his  ;  not  only  because  it  was  novelty, 

1  Charles  Reding  in  Loss  anil  Gain,  vol.  i.,  chap.  iii. 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          359 

and  had  its  proper  charm  as  such,  but  because  when  we  first  see  things, 
we  see  them  in  a  gay  confusion,  which  is  a  principal  element  of  the 
poetical.  As  time  goes  on,  and  we  number  and  sort  and  measure  things, 
— as  we  gain  views,  we  advance  towards  philosophy  and  truth,  but  we 
recede  from  poetry. 

"  When  we  ourselves  were  young,  we  once  on  a  time  walked  on  a 
hot  summer  day  from  Oxford  to  Newington — a  dull  road,  as  any  one  who 
lias  gone  it  knows ;  yet  it  was  new  to  us ;  and  we  protest  to  you,  readerA 
believe  it  or  not,  laugh  or  not,  as  you  will,  to  us  it  seemed  on  thaft 
occasion  quite  touchingly  beautiful ;  and  a  soft  melancholy  came  over  us, 
of  which  the  shadows  fall  even  now,  when  we  look  back  upon  that  dusty, 
weary  journey.  And  why  ?  because  every  object  which  met  us  was 
unknown  and  full  of  mystery.  A  tree  or  two  in  the  distance  seemed  the 
beginning  of  a  great  wood,  or  park,  stretching  endlessly ;  a  hill  implied  a 
vale  beyond,  with  that  vale's  history ;  the  bye-lanes,  with  their  green 
hedges,  wound  on  and  vanished,  yet  were  not  lost  to  the  imagination, 
Such  was  our  first  journey  ;  but  when  we  had  gone  it  several  times,  the 
mind  refused  to  act,  the  scene  ceased  to  enchant,  stern  reality  alone 
remained  ;  and  we  thought  it  one  of  the  most  tiresome,  odious  roads  we 
ever  had  occasion  to  traverse." 

That  is  to  say,  that  the  function  of  the  poet  is  to  in- 
troduce a  "gay  confusion,"  a  rich  medley  which  does  not 
exist  in  the  actual  world — which  perhaps  could  not  exist  in 
any  world — but  which  would  seem  pretty  if  it  did  exist. 
Every  one  who  reads  "  Enoch  Arden"  will  perceive  that  this 
notion  of  all  poetry  is  exactly  applicable  to  this  one  poem. 
Whatever  be  made  of  Enoch's  "  Ocean  spoil  in  ocean- 
smelling  osier,"  of  the  "  portal-warding  lion-whelp,  and  the 
peacock  yew-tree,"  every  one  knows  that  in  himself  Enoch 
could  not  have  been  charming.  People  who  sell  fish  about 
the  country  (and  that  is  what  he  did,  though  Mr.  Tennyson 
won't  speak  out,  and  wraps  it  up)  never  are  beautiful.  As 
Enoch  was  and  must  be  coarse,  in  itself  the  poem  must 
depend  for  a  charm  on  a  "  gay  confusion  "-—  on  a  splendid 
accumulation  of  impossible  accessories. 

Mr.  Tennyson  knows  this  better  than  many  of  us — he 
knows  the  country  world  ;  he  has  proved  that  no  one  living 


360  Literary  Studies. 


knows  it  better ;  he  has  painted  with  pure  art — with  art 
which  describes  what  is  a  race  perhaps  more  refined,  more 
delicate,  more  conscientious,  than  the  sailor — the  "Northern 
Farmer,"  and  we  all  know  what  a  splendid,  what  a  living 
thing,  he  has  made  of  it.  He  could,  if  he  only  would,  have 
given  us  the  ideal  sailor  in  like  manner — the  ideal  of  the 
natural  sailor  we  mean — the  characteristic  present  man  as 
he  lives  and  is.  But  this  he  has  not  chosen.  He  has 
endeavoured  to  describe  an  exceptional  sailor,  at  an  excep- 
tionally refined  port,  performing  a  graceful  act,  an  act  of 
irelinquishment.  And  with  this  task  before  him,  his  pro- 
found taste  taught  him  that  ornate  art  was  a  necessary 
Imedium — was  the  sole  effectual  instrument — for  his  purpose. 
It  was  necessary  for  him  if  possible  to  abstract  the  mind 
from  reality,  to  induce  us  not  to  conceive  or  think  of  sailors 
as  they  are  while  we  are  reading  of  his  sailors,  but  to  think 
of  what  a  person  who  did  not  know,  might  fancy  sailors  to  be. 
A  casual  traveller  on  the  sea-shore,  with  the  sensitive  mood 
and  the  romantic  imagination  Dr.  Newman  has  described, 
might  fancy,  would  fancy,  a  seafaring  village  to  be  like  that. 
Accordingly,  Mr.  Tennyson  has  made  it  his  aim  to  call  off 
the  stress  of  fancy  from  real  life,  to  occupy  it  otherwise,  to 
bury  it  with  pretty  accessories;  to  engage  it  on  the  "peacock 
yew-tree,"  and  the  "  portal-warding  lion-whelp".  Nothing, 
too,  can  be  more  splendid  than  the  description  of  the  tropics 
as  Mr.  Tennyson  delineates  them,  but  a  sailor  would  not 
have  felt  the  tropics  in  that  manner.  The  beauties  of  Nature 
would  not  have  so  much  occupied  him.  He  would  have 
known  little  of  the  scarlet  shafts  of  sunrise  and  nothing  of 
the  long  convolvuluses.  As  in  Robinson  Crusoe,  his  own 
petty  contrivances  and  his  small  ailments  would  have  been 
the  principal  subject  to  him.  "  For  three  years,"  he  might 
have  said,  "  my  back  was  bad;  and  then  I  put  two  pegs  into 
a  piece  of  drift-wood  and  so  made  a  chair ;  and  after  that  it 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          361 

pleased  God  to  send  me  a  chill."  In  real  life  his  piety  would 
scarcely  have  gone  beyond  that. 

It  will  indeed  be  said,  that  though  the  sailor  had  no 
words  for,  and  even  no  explicit  consciousness  of,  the  splendid 
details  of  the  torrid  zone,  yet  that  he  had,  notwithstanding,  a 
dim  latent  inexpressible  conception  of  them :  though  he  could 
not  speak  of  them  or  describe  them,  yet  they  were  much  to 
him.  And  doubtless  such  is  the  case.  Rude  people  are 
impressed  by  what  is  beautiful — deeply  impressed — though 
they  could  not  describe  what  they  see,  or  what  they  feel. 
But  what  is  absurd  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  description — absurd 
when  we  abstract  it  from  the  gorgeous  additions  and  orna- 
ments with  which  Mr.  Tennyson  distracts  us — is,  that  his 
hero  feels  nothing  else  but  these  great  splendours.  We  hear 
nothing  of  the  physical  ailments,  the  rough  devices,  the  low 
superstitions,  which  really  would  have  been  the  first  things, 
the  favourite  and  principal  occupations  of  his  mind.  Just  so 
when  he  gets  home  he  may  have  had  such  fine  sentiments, 
though  it  is  odd,  and  he  may  have  spoken  of  them  to  his  land- 
lady, though  that  is  odder  still, — but  it  is  incredible  that  his 
whole  mind  should  be  made  up  of  fine  sentiments.  Besides 
those  sweet  feelings,  if  he  had  them,  there  must  have  been 
many  more  obvious,  more  prosaic,  and  some  perhaps  more 
healthy.  Mr.  Tennyson  has  shown  a  profound  judgment  in 
distracting  us  as  he  does.  He  has  given  us  a  classic  delinea- 
tion of  the  "  Northern  Farmer"  with  no  ornament  at  all — as 
bare  a  thing  as  can  be — because  he  then  wanted  to  describe  a 
true  type  of  real  men  :  he  has  given  us  a  sailor  crowded  all 
over  with  ornament  and  illustration,  because  he  then  wanted 
to  describe  an  unreal  type  of  fancied  men, — not  sailors  as 
they  are,  but  sailors  as  they  might  be  wished. 

Another  prominent  element  in  "  Enoch  Arden "  is  yet 
more  suitable  to,  yet  more  requires  the  aid  of,  ornate  art. 
Mr.  Tennyson  undertook  to  deal  with  half  belief.  The 


362  Literary  Studies. 


presentiments  which  Annie  feels  are  exactly  of  that  sort 
which  everybody  has  felt,  and  which  every  one  has 
half  believed — which  hardly  any  one  has  more  than  half 
believed.  Almost  every  one,  it  has  been  said,  would  be 
angry  if  any  one  else  reported  that  he  believed  in  ghosts  ; 
yet  hardly  any  one,  when  thinking  by  himself,  wholly 
disbelieves  them.  Just  so  such  presentiments  as  Mr. 
Tennyson  depicts,  impress  the  inner  mind  so  much  that 
the  outer  mind — the  rational  understanding — hardly  likes 
to  consider  them  nicely  or  to  discuss  them  sceptically.  For 
these  dubious  themes  an  ornate  or  complex  style  is  needful. 
Classical  art  speaks  out  what  it  has  to  say  plainly  and 
simply.  Pure  style  cannot  hesitate ;  it  describes  in  con- 
cisest  outline  what  is,  as  it  is.  If  a  poet  really  believes  in 
presentiments  he  can  speak  out  in  pure  style.  One  who 
could  have  been  a  poet — one  of  the  few  in  any  age  of  whom 
one  can  say  certainly  that  they  could  have  been  and  have 
not  been — has  spoken  thus  : — 

"  When  Heaven  sends  sorrow, 

Warnings  go  first, 

Lest  it  should  burst 

With  stunning  might 

On  souls  too  bright 

To  fear  the  morrow. 
"  Can  science  bear  us 

To  the  hid  springs 

Of  human  things  ? 

Why  may  not  dream, 

Or  thought's  day-gleam, 

Startle,  yet  cheer 
"  Are  such  thoughts  fetters, 

While  faith  disowns 

Dread  of  earth's  tones, 

Recks  but  Heaven's  call, 

And  on  the  wall, 

Reads  but  Heaven's  letters  ? "  * 
ijohn  Henry  Newman's  "Warnings" 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          363 

But  if  a  poet  is  not  sure  whether  presentiments  are  tru 
or  not  true  ;  if  he  wishes  to  leave  his  readers  in  doubt :  if  h 
wishes  an  atmosphere  of  indistinct  illusion  and  of  movinj 
shadow,  he  must  use  the  romantic  style,  the  style  of  miscel 
laneous  adjunct,  the  style  "which  shirks,  not  meets"  you 
intellect,  the  style  which,  as  you  are  scrutinising,  .dis 
pears. 

Nor  is  this  all,  or  even  the  principal  lesson,  which  "  Enoch 
Arden  "  may  suggest  to  us,  of  the  use  of  ornate  art.  That  art 
is  the  appropriate  art  for  anufifileasing  type.  Many  of  the 
characters  of  real  life,  if  brougnt  distinctly,  prominently,  and 
plainly  before  the  mind,  as  they  really  are,  if  shown  in  their 
inner  nature,  their  actual  essence,  are  doubtless  very  un- 
pleasant. They  would  be  horrid  to  meet  and  horrid  to  think 
of.  We  fear  it  must  be  owned  that  Enoch  Arden  is  this 
kind  of  person.  A  dirty  sailor  who  did  not  go  home  to  his 
wife  is  not  an  agreeable  being  :  a  varnish  must  be  put  on 
him  to  make  him  shine.  It  is  true  that  he  acts  rightly ; 
that  he  is  very  good.  But  such  is  human  nature  that  it 
finds  a  little  tameness  in  mere  morality.  Mere  virtue  be- 
longs to  a  charity-school  girl,  and  has  a  taint  of  the  cate- 
chism. All  of  us  feel  this,  though  most  of  us  are  too  timid, 
too  scrupulous,  too  anxious  about  the  virtue  of  others  to 
speak  out.  We  are  ashamed  of  our  nature  in  this  respect, 
but  it  is  not  the  less  our  nature.  And  if  we  look  deeper 
into  the  matter  there  are  many  reasons  why  we  should  not 
be  ashamed  of  it.  The  soul  of  man,  and,  as  we  necessarily 
believe,  of  beings  greater  than  man,  has  many  parts  besides 
its  moral  part.  It  has  an  intellectual  part,  an  artistic  part, 
even  a  religious  part,  in  which  mere  morals  have  no  share. 
In  Shakespeare  or  Goethe,  even  in  Newton  or  Archimedes, 
there  is  much  which  will  not  be  cut  down  to  the  shape  of 
the  commandments.  They  have  thoughts,  feelings,  hopes — 
immortal  thoughts  and  hopes — which  have  influenced  the 


364  Literary  Studies. 


life  of  men,  and  the  souls  of  men,  ever  since  their  age,  but 
which  the  "  whole  duty  of  man,"  the  ethical  compendium, 
does  not  recognise.  Nothing  is  more  unpleasant  than  a 
virtuous  person  with  a  mean  mind.  A  highly  developed 
moral  nature  joined  to  an  undeveloped  intellectual  nature, 
an  undeveloped  artistic  nature,  and  a  very  limited  religious 
nature,  is  of  necessity  repulsive.  It  represents  a  bit  of 
human  nature — a  good  bit,  of  course — but  a  bit  only,  in 
disproportionate,  unnatural,  and  revolting  prominence  ;  and 
therefore,  unless  an  artist  use  delicate  care,  we  are  offended. 
The  dismal  act  of  a  squalid  man  needed  many  condiments 
to  make  it  pleasant,  and  therefore  Mr.  Tennyson  was  right 
to^mixjthem  subtly  and  to  use  them  freely. 

A  mere  act  of  self-denial  can  indeed  scarcely  be  pleasant 
upon  paper.  A  heroic  struggle  with  an  external  adversary, 
even  though  it  end  in  a  defeat,  may  easily  be  made  attractive. 
Human  nature  likes  to  see  itself  look  grand,  and  it  looks 
grand  when  it  is  making  a  brave  struggle  with  foreign  foes. 
But  it  does  not  look  grand  when  it  is  divided  against  itself. 
An  excellent  person  striving  with  temptation  is  a  very  ad- 
mirable being  in  reality,  but  he  is  not  a  pleasant  being  in 
description.  We  hope  he  will  win  and  overcome  his  tempta- 
tion ;  but  we  feel  that  he  would  be  a  more  interesting  being, 
higher  being,  if  he  had  not  felt  that  temptation  so  much, 
he  poet  must  make  the  struggle  great  in  order  to  make  the 
elf-denial  virtuous,  and  if  the  struggle  be  too  great,  we  are 
pt  to  feel  some  mixture  of  contempt.  The  internal  meta- 
hysics  of  a  divided  nature  are  but  an  inferior  subject  for  art, 
and  if  they  are  to  be  made  attractive,  much  else  must  be 
combined  with  them.  If  the  excellence  of  "  Hamlet"  had  de- 
pended on  the  ethical  qualities  of  Hamlet,  it  would  not  have 
been  the  masterpiece  of  our  literature.  He  acts  virtuously 
of  course,  and  kills  the  people  he  ought  to  kill,  but  Shake- 
speare knew  that  such  goodness  would  not  much  interest  the 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          365 

pit.  He  made  him  a  handsome  prince  and  a  puzzling 
meditative  character;  these  secular  qualities  relieve  his  moral 
excellence,  and  so  he  becomes  "  nice  ".  In  proportion  as  an 
artist  has  to  deal  with  types  essentially  imperfect,  he  muse 
disguise  their  imperfections  ;  he  must  accumulate  arour/d 
them  as  many  first-rate  accessories  as  may  make  his  readers 
forget  that  they  arethem  selves  second-rate.  The  sudden 
millionaires  of  th|present"day  hope  to  disguise  their  social 
defects  by  buying  old  places,  and  hiding  among  aristocratic 
furniture ;  just  so  a  great  artist  who  has  to  deal  with 
characters  artistically  imperfect,  will  use  an  ornate  style,  will 
fit  them  into  a  scene  where  there  is  much  else  to  look  at. 

For  these  reasons  ornate  art  is,  within  the  limits,  as  legiti- 
mate as  pure  art.  It  does  what  pure  art  could  not  do.  The 
very  excellence  of  pure  art  confines  its  employment.  Pre- 
cisely because  it  gives  the  best  things  by  themselves  and 
exactly  as  they  are,  it  fails  when  it  is  necessary  to  describe 
inferior  things  among  other  things,  with  a  list  of  enhance- 
ments and  a  crowd  of  accompaniments  that  in  reality  do  not 
belong  to  it.  Illusion,  half  belief,  unpleasant  types,  imper- 
fect types,  are  as  much  the  proper  sphere  of  ornate  art,  as  an 
inferior  landscape  is  the  proper  sphere  for  the  true  efficacy 
of  moonlight.  A  really  sfeat  landscape  needs  sunlight  and 
bears  sunlight ;  but  moonlight  is  an  equaliser  of  beauties  ; 
it  gives  a  romantic  unreality  to  what  will  not  stand  the  bare 
truth.  And  just  so  does  romantic  art. 

There  is,  however,  a  third  kind  of  art  which  differs  from 
these  on  the  point  in  which  they  most  resemble  one  another. 
Ornate  art  and  pure  art  have  this  in  common,  that  they  paint 
the  types  of  literature  in  a  form  as  perfect  as  they  can. 
Ornate  art,  indeed,  uses  undue  disguises  and  unreal  enhance- 
ments ;  it  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  best  types  ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  its  office  to  make  the  best  of  imperfect  types 
and  lame  approximations ;  but  ornate  art,  as  much  as  pure 


366  Literary  Studies. 

art,  catches  its  subject  in  the  best  light  it  can,  takes  the 
most  developed  aspect  of  it  which  it  can  find,  and  throws 
upon  it  the  most  congruous  colours  it  can  use.  But  grotesque 
art  does  just  the  contrary.  It  takes  the  type,  so  to  say,  in 
difficulties.  It  gives  a  representation  of  it  in  its  minimum 
development,  amid  the  circumstances  least  favourable  to  it, 
just  while  it  is  struggling  with  obstacles,  just  where  it  is 

ncumbered  with  incongruities.  It  deals,  to  use  the  language 
)f  science,  not  with  normal  types  but  with  abnormal  speci- 
Jnens;  to  use  the  language  of  old  philosophy,  not  with  what 
Mature  is  striving  to  be,  but  with  what  by  some  lapse  she 
las  happened  to  become. 

Trus  art  works  by  contrast.  It  enables  you  to  see,  it 
makes  you  see,  the  perfect  type  by  painting  the  opposite 
deviation.  It  shows  you  what  ought  to  be  by  what  ought 
not  to  be;  when  complete,  it  reminds  you  of  the  perfect  image, 
by  showing  you  the  distorted  and  imperfect  image.  Of  this 
art  we  possess  in  the  present  generation  one  prolific  master. 
Mr.  Browning  is  an  artist  working  by  incongruity.  Possibly 
hardly  one  of  his  most  considerable  efforts  can  be  found 
which  is  not  great  because  of  its  odd  mixture.  He  puts  to- 
gether things  which  no  one  else  would  have  put  together, 
and  produces  on  our  minds  a  result  which  no  one  else  would 
have  produced,  or  tried  to  produce.  His  admirers  may  not 
like  all  we  may  have  to  say  of  him.  But  in  our  way  we  too 
are  among  his  admirers.  No  one  ever  read  him  without 
seeing  not  only  his  great  ability  but  his  great  mind.  He  not 
only  possesses  superficial  useable  talents,  but  the  strong 
something,  the  inner  secret  something,  which  uses  them  and 
controls  them  ;  he  is  great  not  in  mere  accomplishments, 
but  in  himself.  He  has  applied  a  hard  strong  intellect  to 
real  lile;  he  has  applied  the  same  intellect  to  the  problems 
ot  his  age.  He  has  striven  to  know  what  is :  he  has 
endeavoured  not  to  be  cheated  by  counterfeits,  not  to  be 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          367 

infatuated  with  illusions.  His  heart  is  in  what  he  says.  He 
has  battered  his  brain  against  his  creed  till  he  believes  it. 
He  has  accomplishments  too,  the  more  effective  because  they 
are  mixed.  He  is  at  once  a  student  of  mysticism  and  a 
citizen  of  the  world.  He  brings  to  the  club-sofa  distinct 
visions  of  old  creeds,  intense  images  of  strange  thoughts  :  he 
takes  to  the  bookish  student  tidings  of  wild  Bohemia,  and 
little  traces  of  the  demi-monde.  He  puts  down  what  is  good 
for  the  naughty,  and  what  is  naughty  for  the  good.  Over 
women  his  easier  writings  exercise  that  imperious  power 
which  belongs  to  the  writings  of  a  great  man  of  the  world 
upon  such  matters.  He  knows  women,  and  therefore  they 
wish  to  know  him.  If  we  blame  many  of  Browning's  efforts, 
it  is  in  the  interest  of  art,  and  not  from  a  wish  to  hurt  or 
degrade  him. 

If  we  wanted  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  grotesque  art  by  an 
exaggerated  instance,  we  should  have  selected  a  poem  which 
the  chance  of  late  publication  brings  us  in  this  new  volume. 
Mr.  Browning  has  undertaken  to  describe  what  may  be 
called  mind  in  difficulties — mind  set  to  make  out  the  universe 
under  the  worst  and  hardest  circumstances.  He  takes 
"  Caliban, "not  perhaps  exactly  Shakespeare's  Caliban,  but  an 
analogous  and  worse  creature ;  a  strong  thinking  power,  but 
a  nasty  creature — a  gross  animal,  uncontrolled  and  unele- 
vated  by  any  feeling  of  religion  or  duty.  The  delineation  of 
him  will  show  that  Mr.  Browning  does  not  wish  to  take 
undue  advantage  of  his  readers  by  a  choice  of  nice  subjects. 

"  Will  sprawl,  now  that  the  heat  of  day  is  best, 
Flat  on  his  belly  in  the  pit's  much  mire, 
With  elbows  wide,  fists  clenched  to  prop  his  chin ; 
And,  while  he  kicks  both  feet  in  the  cool  slush, 
And  feels  about  his  spine  small  eft-things  course, 
Run  in  and  out  each  arm,  and  make  him  laugh ; 
Artd  while  above  his  head  a  pompion  plant, 


368  Literary  Studies. 


Coating  the  cave-top  as  a  brow  its  eye, 
Creeps  down  to  touch  and  tickle  hair  and  beard, 
And  now  a  flower  drops  with  a  bee  inside, 
And  now  a  fruit  to  snap  at,  catch  and  crunch :  " 

This  pleasant  creature  proceeds  to  give  his  idea  of  the  origin 
of  the  Universe,  and  it  is  as  follows.  Caliban  speaks  in 
the  third  person,  and  is  of  opinion  that  the  maker  of  the 
Universe  took  to  making  it  on  account  of  his  personal 
discomfort : — 

"  Setebos,  Setebos,  and  Setebos  ! 
'Thinketh,  He  dwelleth  i'  the  cold  o'  the  moon. 

"  'Thinketh  He  made  it,  with  the  sun  to  match, 
But  not  the  stars  :  the  stars  came  otherwise  ; 
Only  made  clouds,  winds,  meteors,  such  as  that : 
Also  this  isle,  what  lives  and  grows  thereon, 
And  snaky  sea  which  rounds  and  ends  the  same. 

"  'Thinketh,  it  came  of  being  ill  at  ease  : 
He  hated  that  He  cannot  change  His  cold, 
Nor  cure  its  ache.     'Hath  spied  an  icy  fish 
That  longed  to  'scape  the  rock-stream  where  she  lived, 
And  thaw  herself  within  the  lukewarm  brine 
O'  the  lazy  sea  her  stream  thrusts  far  amid, 
A  crystal  spike  'twixt  two  warm  walls  of  wave  ; 
Only  she  ever  sickened,  found  repulse 
At  the  other  kind  of  water,  not  her  life, 
(Green-dense  and  dim-delicious,  bred  o'  the  sun) 
Flounced  back  from  bliss  she  was  not  born  to  breathe, 
And  in  her  old  bounds  buried  her  despair, 
Hating  and  loving  warmth  alike :  so  He. 

"  'Thinketh,  He  made  thereat  the  sun,  this  isle, 
Trees  and  the  fowls  here,  beast  and  creeping  thing. 
Yon  otter,  sleek-wet,  black,  lithe  as  a  leech ; 
Yon  auk,  one  fire-eye,  in  a  ball  of  foam, 
That  floats  and  feeds ;  a  certain  badger  brown 
He  "hath  watched  hunt  with  that  slant  white-wedge  eye 
By  moonlight ;  and  the  pie  with  the  long  tongue    • 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          360) 

That  pricks  deep  into  oakwarts  for  a  worm, 
And  says  a  plain  word  when  she  finds  her  prize, 
But  will  not  eat  the  ants ;  the  ants  themselves 
That  build  a  wall  of  seeds  and  settled  stalks 
About  their  hole — He  made  all  these  and  more, 
Made  all  we  see,  and  us,  in  spite :  how  else  ? " 

It  may  seem  perhaps  to  most  readers  that  these  lines  are 
very  difficult,  and  that  they  are  unpleasant.  And  so  they 
are.  We  quote  them  to  illustrate,  not  the  success  of  grotesque 
art,  but  the  nature  of  grotesque  art.  It  shows  the  end  at 
which  this  species  of  art  aims,  and  if  it  fails  it  is  from  over- 
boldness  in  the  choice  of  a  subject  by  the  artist,  or  from  the 
defects  of  its  execution.  A  thinking  faculty  more  in  diffi- 
culties —  a  great  type  —  an  inquisitive,  searching  intellect 
under  more  disagreeable  conditions,  with  worse  helps,  more 
likely  to  find  falsehood,  less  likely  to  find  truth,  can  scarcely 
be  imagined.  Nor  is  the  mere  description  of  the  though"1 
at  all  bad :  on  the  contrary,  if  we  closely  examine  it,  it  is 
very  clever.  Hardly  any  one  could  have  amassed  so  many 
ideas  at  once  nasty  and  suitable.  But  scarcely  any  readers 
— any  casual  readers — who  are  not  of  the  sect  of  Mr. 
Browning's  admirers  will  be  able  to  examine  it  enough  to 
appreciate  it.  From  a  defect,  partly  of  subject,  and  partly 
of  style,  many  of  Mr.  Browning's  works  make  a  demand 
upon  the  reader's  zeal  and  sense  of  duty  to  which  the  nature 
of  most  readers  is  unequal.  They  have  on  the  turf  the 
convenient  expression  "  staying  power"  :  some  horses  can 
hold  on  and  others  cannot.  But  hardly  any  reader  not  of 
especial  and  peculiar  nature  can  hold  on  through  such 
composition.  There  is  not  enough  of  "staying  power"  in 
human  nature.  One  of  his  greatest  admirers  once  owned 
to  us  that  he  seldom  or  never  began  a  new  poem  without 
looking  on  in  advance,  and  foreseeing  with  caution  what 
length  of  intellectual  adventure  he  was  about  to  commence. 
VOL.  ii.  24 


370  Literary  Studies. 


Whoever  will  work  hard  at  such  poems  will  find  much  mind 
in  them  :  they  are  a  sort  of  quarry  of  ideas,  but  whoever 
goes  there  will  find  these  ideas  in  such  a  jagged,  ugly, 
useless  shape  that  he  can  hardly  bear  them. 

We  are  not  judging  Mr.  Browning  simply  from  a  hasty, 
recent  production.  All  poets  are  liable  to  misconceptions, 
and  if  such  a  piece  as  "Caliban  upon  Setebos "  were  an 
isolated  error,  a  venial  and  particular  exception,  we  should 
have  given  it  no  prominence.  We  have  put  it  forward 
because  it  just  elucidates  both  our  subject  and  the  charac- 
teristics of  Mr.  Browning.  But  many  other  of  his  best 
known  pieces  do  so  almost  equally ;  what  several  of  his 
devotees  think  his  best  piece  is  quite  enough  illustrative 
for  anything  we  want.  It  appears  that  on  Holy  Cross  day 
at  Rome  the  Jews  were  obliged  to  listen  to  a  Christian 
sermon  in  the  hope  of  their  conversion,  though  this  is, 
according  to  Mr.  Browning,  what  they  really  said  when 
they  came  away  : — 

"Fee,  faw,  fum  !  bubble  and  squeak! 
Blessedest  Thursday's  the  fat  of  the  week. 
Rumble  and  tumble,  sleek  and  rough, 
Stinking  and  savoury,  smug  and  gruff, 
Take  the  church-road,  for  the  bell's  due  chime 
Gives  us  the  summons — 't  is  sermon-time. 

"  Boh,  here's  Barnabas !  Job,  that's  you  ? 
Up  stumps  Solomon — bustling  too  ? 
Shame,  man  !  greedy  beyond  your  years 
To  handsel  the  bishop's  shaving-shears  ? 
Fair  play's  a  jewel  I  leave  friends  in  the  lurch  ? 
Stand  on  a  line  ere  you  start  for  the  church. 

"Higgledy,  piggledy,  packed  we  lie, 
Rats  in  a  hamper,  swine  in  a  stye, 
Wasps  in  a  bottle,  frogs  in  a  sieve, 
Worms  in  a  carcase,  fleas  in  a  sleeve. 
Hist !  square  shoulders,  settle  your  thumbs 
And  buzz  for  the  bishop — here  he  comes." 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          371 

And  after  similar  nice  remarks   for  a   church,   the   edified 
congregation  concludes  : — 

"  But  now,  while  the  scapegoats  leave  our  flock, 
And  the  rest  sit  silent  and  count  the  clock, 
Since  forced  to  muse  the  appointed  time 
On  these  precious  facts  and  truths  sublime, — 
Let  us  fitly  employ  it,  under  our  breath, 
In  saying  Ben  Ezra's  Song  of  Death. 

"  For  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  the  night  he  died, 
Called  sons  and  sons'  sons  to  his  side, 
And  spoke,   '  This  world  has  been  harsh  and  strange  ; 
Something  is  wrong :  there  needeth  a  change. 
But  what,  or  where  ?  at  the  last,  or  first  ? 
In  one  point  only  we  sinned,  at  worst. 

"  '  The  Lord  will  have  mercy  on  Jacob  yet, 
And  again  in  his  border  see  Israel  set. 
When  Judah  beholds  Jerusalem, 
The  stranger-seed  shall  be  joined  to  them : 
To  Jacob's  House  shall  the  Gentiles  cleave. 
So  the  Prophet  saith  and  his  sons  believe. 

"'Ay,  the  children  of  the  chosen  race 
Shall  carry  and  bring  them  to  their  place  : 
In  the  land  of  the  Lord  shall  lead  the  same, 
Bondsmen  and  handmaids.     Who  shall  blame, 
When  the  slave  enslave,  the  oppressed  ones  o'er 
The  oppressor  triumph  for  evermore  ? 

"  '  God  spoke,  and  gave  us  the  word  to  keep  : 
Bade  never  fold  the  hands  nor  sleep 
'Mid  a  faithless  world, — at  watch  and  ward, 
Till  Christ  at  the  end  relieve  our  guard. 
By  His  servant  Moses  the  watch  was  set : 
Though  near  upon  cock-crow,  we  keep  it  yet. 

"  '  Thou !  if  Thou  wast  He,  who  at  mid  watch  came, 
By  the  starlight,  naming  a  dubious  Name ! 
And  if,  too  heavy  with  sleep — too  rash 
With  fear — O  Thou,  if  that  martyr  gash 
Fell  on  Thee  coming  to  take  Thine  own, 
And  we  gave  the  Cross,  when  we  owed  the  Throne — 


372  Literary  Studies. 


"  '  Thou  art  the  Judge.     We  are  bruised  thus. 
But,  the  judgment  over,  join  sides  with  us  ! 
Thine  too  is  the  cause  !  and  not  more  Thine 
Than  ours,  is  the  work  of  these  dogs  and  swine, 
Whose  life  laughs  through  and  spits  at  their  creed, 
Who  maintain  Thee  in  word,  and  defy  Thee  in  deed ! 

"  '  We  withstood  Christ  then  ?  be  mindful  how 
At  least  we  withstand  Barabbas  now  ! 
Was  our  outrage  sore  ?     But  the  worst  we  spared, 
To  have  called  those — Christians,  had  we  dared  ! 
Let  defiance  to  them  pay  mistrust  of  Thee, 
And  Rome  make  amends  for  Calvary ! 

"  '  By  the  torture,  prolonged  from  age  to  age, 
By  the  infamy,  Israel's  heritage, 
By  the  Ghetto's  plague,  by  the  garb's  disgrace, 
By  the  badge  of  shame,  by  the  felon's  place, 
By  the  branding-tool,  the  bloody  whip, 
And  the  summons  to  Christian  fellowship, — 

"  '  We  boast  our  proof  that  at  least  the  Jew 
Would  wrest  Christ's  name  from  the  Devil's  crew. 
Thy  face  took  never  so  deep  a  shade 
But  we  fought  them  in  it,  God  our  aid ! 
A  trophy  to  bear,  as  we  march,  Thy  band 
South,  East,  and  on  to  the  Pleasant  Land  ! '  " 

It  is  very  natural  that  a  poet  whose  wishes  incline,  or 
whose  genius  conducts,  him  to  a  grotesque  art,  should  be 
attracted  towards  mediaeval  subjects.  There  is  no  age  whose 
legends  are  so  full  of  grotesque  subjects,  and  no  age  whose 
real  life  was  so  fit  to  suggest  them.  Then,  more  than  at 
any  other  time,  good  principles  have  been  under  great  hard- 
ships. The  vestiges  of  ancient  civilisation,  the  germs  of 
modern  civilisation,  the  little  remains  of  what  had  been,  the 
small  beginnings  of  what  is,  were  buried  under  a  cumbrous 
nass  of  barbarism  and  cruelty.  Good  elements  hidden  in 
lorrid  accompaniments  are  the  special  theme  of  grotesque 
.rt,  and  these  mediaeval  life  and  legends  afford  more 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          373 

copiously  than  could  have  been  furnished  before  Christianity 
gave  its  new  elements  of  good,  or  since  modern  civilisation 
has  removed  some  few  at  least  of  the  old  elements  of  de- 
struction. A  buried  life  like  the  spiritual  mediaeval  was  Mr. 
Browning's  natural  element,  and  he  was  right  to  be  attracted 
by  it.  His  mistake  has  been,  that  he  has  not  made  it  pleas- 
ant ;  that  he  has  forced  his  art  to  topics  on  which  no  one 
could  charm,  or  on  which  he,  at  any  rate,  could  not ;  that 
on  these  occasions  and  in  these  poems  he  has  failed  m 
fascinating  men  and  women  of  sane  taste. 

We  say  "  sane  "  because  there  is  a  most  formidable  and 
estimable  insane  taste.  The  will  has  great  though  indirect 
power  over  the  taste,  just  as  it  has  over  the  belief.  There 
are  some  horrid  beliefs  from  which  human  nature  revolts, 
from  which  at  first  it  shrinks,  to  which,  at  first,  no  effort  can 
force  it.  But  if  we  fix  the  mind  upon  them  they  have  a 
power  over  us  just  because  of  their  natural  offensiveness. 
They  are  like  the  sight  of  human  blood  :  experienced  soldiers 
tell  us  that  at  first  men  are  sickened  by  the  smell  and  new- 
ness of  blood  almost  to  death  and  fainting,  but  that  as  soon 
as  they  harden  their  hearts  and  stiffen  their  minds,  as  soon 
as  they  will  bear  it,  then  comes  an  appetite  for  slaughter, 
tendency  to  gloat  on  carnage,  to  love  blood,  at  least  for  th 
moment,  with  a  deep,  eager  love.  It  is  a  principle  that  if 
we  put  down  a  healthy  instinctive  aversion,  Nature  avenges 
herself  by  creating  an  unhealthy  insane  attraction.  For  this 
reason,  the  most  earnest  truth-seeking  men  fall  into  the 
worst  delusions ;  they  will  not  let  their  mind  alone ;  they 
force  it  towards  some  ugly  thing,  which  a  crochet  of  argu- 
ment, a  conceit  of  intellect  recommends,  and  Nature  punishes 
their  disregard  of  her  warning  by  subjection  to  the  ugly  one, 
by  belief  in  it.  Just  so  the  most  industrious  critics  get  the 
most  admiration.  They  think  it  unjust  to  rest  in  their  in- 
stinctive natural  horror :  they  overcome  it,  and  angry  Nature 


374  Literary  Studies. 


gives  them  over  to  ugly  poems  and  marries  them  to  detest- 
able stanzas. 

Mr.  Browning  possibly,  and  some  of  the  worst  of  Mr. 
Browning's  admirers  certainly,  will  say  that  these  grotesque 
objects  exist  in  real  life,  and  therefore  they  ought  to  be,  at 
least  may  be,  described  in  art.  But,  though  pleasure  is  not 
the  end  of  poetry,  pleasing  is  a  condi^ion_ji£poetry.  An  ex- 
ceptional monstrosity  of  horrid  ugliness  cannot  be  made 
pleasing,  except  it  be  made  to  suggest — to  recall — the  per- 
fection, the  beauty,  from  which  it  is  a  'deviation.  Perhaps 
in  extreme  cases  no  art  is  equal  to  this ;  but  then  such  self- 
imposed  problems  should  not  be  worked  by  the  artist ;  these 
out-of-the-way  and  detestable  subjects  should  be  let  alone  by 
him.  It  is  rather  characteristic  of  Mr.  Browning  to  neglect 
this  rule.  He  is  the  most  of  a  realist,  and  the  least  of  an 
idealist,  of  any  poet  we  know.  He  evidently  sympathises 
with  some  part  at  least  of  Bishop  Blougram's  apology.  Any- 
how this  world  exists.  "  There  is  good  wine — there  are 
pretty  women — there  are  comfortable  benefices — there  is 
money,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  spend  it.  Accept  the  creed  of 
your  age  and  you  get  these,  reject  that  creed  and  you  lose 
them.  And  for  what  do  you  lose  them  ?  For  a  fancy  creed 
of  your  own,  which  no  one  else  will  accept,  which  hardly 
any  one  will  call  a  'creed,'  which  most  people  will  consider 
a  sort  of  unbelief."  Again,  Mr.  Browning  evidently  loves 
what  we  may  call  the  realism,  the  grotesque  realism,  of 
orthodox  Christianity.  Many  parts  of  it  in  which  great 
divines  have  felt  keen  difficulties  are  quite  pleasant  to  him. 
He  must  see  his  religion,  he  must  have  an  "  object-lesson  "  in 
believing.  He  must  have  a  creed  that  will  take,  which  wins 
and  holds  the  miscellaneous  world,  which  stout  men  will 
heed,  which  nice  women  will  adore.  The  spare  moments  of 
solitary  religion — the  "obdurate  questionings,"  the  high  "  in- 
stincts," the  "first  affections/'  the  "shadowy  recollections," 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          375 

"  Which,  do  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day — 
Are  yet  a  master-light  of  all  our  seeing ;  "  1 

the  great  but  vague  faith — the  unutterable  tenets — seem  to 
him  worthless,  visionary;  they  are  not  enough  "immersed  in 
matter";2  they  move  about  "  in  worlds  not  realised".  We/ 
wish  he  could  be  tried  like  the  prophet  once ;  he  would  have 
found  God  in  the  earthquake  and  the  storm  ;  he  would  have 
deciphered  from  them  a  bracing  and  a  rough  religion  :  he 
would  have  known  that  crude  men  and  ignorant  women  felt 
them  too,  and  he  would  accordingly  have  trusted  them ;  but 
he  would  have  distrusted  and  disregarded  the  "  still  small 
voice":  he  would  have  said  it  was  "fancy" — a  thing  you 
thought  you  heard  to-day,  but  were  not  sure  you  had  heard 
to-morrow :  he  would  call  it  a  nice  illusion,  an  immaterial 
prettiness ;  he  would  ask  triumphantly,  "  How  are  you  to  get 
the  mass  of  men  to  heed  this  little  thing  ?  "  he  would  have 
persevered  and  insisted,  "My  wife  does  not  hear  it  ". 

But  although  a  suspicion  of  beauty,  and  a  taste  for  ugly 
reality,  have  led  Mr.  Browning  to  exaggerate  the  functions 
and  to  caricature  the  nature  of  grotesque  art,  we  own,  or 
rather  we  maintain,  that  he  has  given  many  excellent  speci- 
mens of  that  art  within  its  proper  boundaries  and  limits. 
Take  an  example,  his  picture  of  what  we  may  call  the  bour- 
geois nature  in  difficulties  ;  in  the  utmost  difficulty,  in  con- 
tact with  magic  and  the  supernatural.  He  has  made  of  it 
something  homely,  comic,  true ;  reminding  us  of  what 
bourgeois  nature  really  is.  By  showing  us  the  type  under 
abnormal  conditions,  he  reminds  us  of  the  type  under  its 
best  and  most  satisfactory  conditions  : — 


1  Wordsworth  :  "  Intimations  of  Immortality,"  ix. 

c  on  the  Human  Understanding,  book  iv.,  chap,  iii.,  i,  2. 


376  Literary  Studies. 


"  Hamelin  Town's  in  Brunswick, 

By  famous  Hanover  city  ; 
The  river  Weser,  deep  and  wide, 
Washes  its  walls  on  the  southern  side ; 
A  pleasanter  spot  you  never  spied ; 
But  when  begins  my  ditty, 
Almost  five  hundred  years  ago, 
To  see  the  townsfolk  suffer  so 

From  vermin,  was  a  pity. 

"  Rats! 

They  fought  the  dogs,  and  killed  the  cats, 
And  bit  the  babies  in  the  cradles, 
And  ate  the  cheeses  out  of  the  vats, 

And  licked  the  soup  from  the  cook's  own  ladles 
Split  open  the  kegs  of  salted  sprats, 
Made  nests  inside  men's  Sunday  hats, 
And  even  spoiled  the  women's  chats, 
By  drowning  their  speaking 
With  shrieking  and  squeaking 
In  fifty  different  sharps  and  flats. 

"  At  last  the  people  in  a  body 

To  the  Town  Hall  came  flocking : 
1  'Tis  clear,'  cried  they,  '  our  Mayor's  a  noddy  , 

And  as  for  our  Corporation — shocking, 
To  think  we  buy  gowns  lined  with  ermine, 
For  dolts  that  can't  or  won't  determine 
What's  best  to  rid  us  of  our  vermin  ! 
You  hope,  because  you're  old  and  obese, 
To  find  in  the  furry  civic  robe  ease  ? 
Rouse  up,  sirs  !     Give  your  brains  a  racking 
To  find  the  remedy  we're  lacking, 
Or,  sure  as  fate,  we'll  send  you  packing  ! ' 
And  at  this  the  Mayor  and  the  Corporation 
Quaked  with  a  mighty  consternation." 

A  person  of  musical  abilities  proposes  to  extricate  the 
civic  dignitaries  from  the  difficulty,  and  they  promise  him  a 
thousand  guilders  if  he  does, 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          377 

'  Into  the  street  the  Piper  stept, 

Smiling  first  a  little  smile, 
As  if  he  knew  what  magic  slept 

In  his  quiet  pipe  the  while  ; 
Then,  like  a  musical  adept, 
To  blow  the  pipe  his  lips  he  wrinkled, 
And  green  and  blue  his  sharp  eye  twinkled, 
Like  a  candle-flame  when  salt  is  sprinkled  ; 
And  ere  three  shrill  notes  the  pipe  uttered 
You  heard  as  if  an  army  muttered  ; 
And  the  muttering  grew  to  a  grumbling  ; 
And  the  grumbling  grew  to  a  mighty  rumbling  : 
And  out  of  the  houses  the  rats  came  tumbling. 
Great  rats,  small  rats,  lean  rats,  brawny  rats, 
Brown  rats,  black  rats,  grey  rats,  tawny  rats, 
Grave  old  plodders,  gay  young  friskers. 

Fathers,  mothers,  uncles,  cousins, 
Cocking  tails  and  pricking  whiskers, 

Families  by  tens  and  dozens. 
Brothers,  sisters,  husbands,  wives — 
Followed  the  Piper  for  their  lives. 
From  street  to  street  he  piped  advancing, 
And  step  for  step  they  followed  dancing 
Until  they  came  to  the  river  Weser, 
Wherein  all  plunged  and  perished  ! 
— Save  one  who,  stout  as  Julius  Caesar, 
Swam  across  and  lived  to  carry 
(As  he,  the  manuscript  he  cherished) 
To  Rat-land  home  his  commentary  : 
Which  was,  '  At  the  first  shrill  notes  of  the  pipe, 
I  heard  a  sound  as  of  scraping  tripe, 
And  putting  apples,  wondrous  ripe, 
Into  a  cider-press's  gripe  : 
And  a  moving  away  of  pickle-tub  boards, 
And  a  leaving  ajar  of  conserve  cupboards, 
And  a  drawing  the  corks  of  train-oil  flasks, 
And  a  breaking  the  hoops  of  butter  casks  ; 
And  it  seemed  as  if  a  voice 
(Sweeter  far  than  by  harp  or  by  psaltery 
Is  breathed)  called  out,  Oh  rats,  rejoice  ! 
The  world  is  grown  to  one  vast  drysaltery 


378  Literary  Studies. 


So  munch  on,  crunch  on,  take  your  nuncheon, 

Breakfast,  supper,  dinner,  luncheon  ! 

And  just  as  a  bulky  sugar-puncheon, 

All  ready  staved,  like  a  great  sun  shone 

Glorious  scarce  an  inch  before  me, 

Just  as  methought  it  said,  Come  bore  me  ! 

— I  found  the  Weser  rolling  o'er  me.' 

You  should  have  heard  the  Hamelin  people 

Ringing  the  bells  till  they  rocked  the  steeple. 

'  Go,'  said  the  Mayor,  '  and  get  long  poles, 

Poke  out  the  nests  and  block  up  the  holes  J 

Consult  with  carpenters  and  builders, 

And  leave  in  our  town  not  even  a  trace 

Of  the  rats  !  '  when  suddenly  up  the  face 

Of  the  Piper  perked  in  the  market-place, 

With  a  '  First,  if  you  please,  my  thousand  guilders! ' 

"A  thousand  guilders !     The  Mayor  looked  blue ; 
So  did  the  Corporation  too. 
For  council  dinners  made  rare  havoc 
With  Claret,  Moselle,  Vin-de-Grave,  Hock ; 
And  half  the  money  would  replenish 
Their  cellar's  biggest  butt  with  Rhenish. 
To  pay  this  sum  to  a  wandering  fellow 
With  a  gipsy  coat  of  red  and  yellow ! 
'  Beside,'  quoth  the  Mayor  with  a  knowing  wink, 
'  Our  business  was  done  at  the  river's  brink ; 
We  saw  with  our  eyes  the  vermin  sink, 
And  what's  dead  can't  come  to  life,  I  think. 
So,  friend,  we're  not  the  folks  to  shrink 
From  the  duty  of  giving  you  something  for  drink, 
And  a  matter  of  money  to  put  in  your  poke ; 
But  as  for  the  guilders,  what  we  spoke 
Of  them,  as  you  very  well  know,  was  in  joke. 
Beside,  our  losses  have  made  us  thrifty. 
A  thousand  guilders !     Come,  take  fifty  ! ' 

"The  Piper's  face  fell,  and  he  cried, 
'  No  trifling !     I  can't  wait,  beside  ! 
I've  promised  to  visit  by  dinner-tiniQ 
Bagdat,  and  accept  the  prime 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          379 

Of  the  Head-Cook's  pottage,  all  he's  rich  in, 
For  having  left,  in  the  Caliph's  kitchen, 
Of  a  nest  of  scorpions  no  survivor — 
With  him  I  proved  no  bargain-driver. 
With  you,  don't  think  I'll  bate  a  stiver ! 
And  folks  who  put  me  in  a  passion 
May  find  me  pipe  to  another  fashion.' 

"  '  How  ? '  cried  the  Mayor,  '  d'ye  think  I'll  brook 
Being  worse  treated  than  a  Cook  ? 
Insulted  by  a  lazy  ribald 
With  idle  pipe  and  vesture  piebald  ? 
You  threaten  us,  fellow  ?     Do  your  worst, 
Blow  your  pipe  there  till  you  burst !  ' 

"  Once  more  he  slept  into  the  street ; 

And  to  his  lips  again 
Laid  his  long  pipe  of  smooth  straight  cane  ; 

And  ere  he  blew  three  notes  (such  sweet 
Soft  notes  as  yet  musician's  cunning 

Never  gave  the  enraptured  air) 
There  was  a  rustling  that  seemed  like  a  bustling 
Of  merry  crowds  justling  at  pitching  and  hustling, 
Small  feet  were  pattering,  wooden  shoes  clattering, 
Little  hands  clapping  and  little  tongues  chattering, 
And,  like  fowls  in  a  farm-yard  when  barley  is  scattering, 
Out  came  the  children  running. 

"  All  the  little  boys  and  girls, 
With  rosy  cheeks  and  flaxen  curls, 
And  sparkling  eyes  and  teeth  like  pearls, 
Tripping  and  skipping,  ran  merrily  after 
The  wonderful  music  with  shouting  and  laughter. 


'  And  I  must  not  omit  to  say 
That  in  Transylvania  there's  a  tribe 
Of  alien  people  that  ascribe 
The  outlandish  ways  and  dress 
On  which  their  neighbours  lay  such  stress 
To  their  fathers  and  mothers  having  risen 


380  Literary  Studies. 


Out  of  some  subterraneous  prison 
Into  which  they  were  trepanned 
Long  time  ago  in  a  mighty  band 
Out  of  Hamelin  town  in  Brunswick  land, 
But  how  or  why  they  don't  understand." 

Something  more  we  had  to  say  of  Mr.  Browning,  but 
we  must  stop.  It  is  singularly  characteristic  of  this  age 
that  the  poems  which  rise  to  the  surface  should  be  examples 
of  ornate  art,  and  grotesque  art,  not  of  pure  art.  We  live 
in  the  realm  of  the  half  educated.  The  number  of  readers 
grows  daily,  but  the  quality  of  readers  does  not  improve 
rapidly.  The  middle  class  is  scattered,  heedless  ;  it  is  well- 
meaning,  but  aimless ;  wishing  to  be  wise,  but  ignorant 
how  to  be  wise.  The  aristocracy  of  England  never  was  a 
literary  aristocracy,  never  even  in  the  days  of  its  full  power, 
of  its  unquestioned  predominance,  did  it  guide  —  did  it 
even  seriously  try  to  guide — the  taste  of  England.  With- 
aut  guidance  young  men,  and  tired  men,  are  thrown 
imongst  a  mass  of  books ;  they  have  to  choose  which  they 
ike ;  many  of  them  would  much  like  to  improve  their  cul- 
ure,  to  chasten  their  taste,  if  they  knew  how.  But  left  to 
hemselves  they  take,  not  pure  art,  but  showy  art ;  not  that 
which  permanently  relieves  the  eye  and  makes  it  happy 
whenever  it  looks,  and  as  long  as  it  looks,  but  glaring  art 
which  catches  and  arrests  the  eye  for  a  moment,  but  which 
in  the  end  fatigues  it.  But  before  the  wholesome  remedy  of 
nature — the  fatigue  arrives — the  hasty  reader  has  passed  on 
to  some  new  excitement,  which  in  its  turn  stimulates  for  an 
instant,  and  then  is  passed  by  for  ever.  These  conditions 
are  not  favourable  to  the  due  appreciation  of  pure  art — of 
that  art  which  must  be  known  before  it  is  admired — which 
must  have  fastened  irrevocably  on  the  brain  before  you 
appreciate  it — which  you  must  love  ere  it  will  seem  worthy 
of  your  love.  Women  too,  whose  voice  on  literature  counts 


Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning.          381 

as  well  as  that  of  men — and  in  a  light  literature  counts  for 
more  than  that  of  men — women,  such  as  we  know  them, 
such  as  they  are  likely  to  be,  ever  prefer  a  delicate  unreality 
to  a  true  or  firm  art.  A  dressy  literature,  an  exaggerated 
literature  seem  to  be  fated  to  us.  These  are  our  curses,  as 
other  times  had  theirs. 

"  And  yet 

Think  not  the  living  times  forget, 
Ages  of  heroes  fought  and  fell, 
That  Homer  in  the  end  might  tell ; 
O'er  grovelling  generations  past 
Upstood  the  Doric  fane  at  last ; 
And  countless  hearts  on  countless  years 
Had  wasted  thoughts,  and  hopes,  and  fears, 
Rude  laughter  and  unmeaning  tears ; 
Ere  England  Shakespeare  saw,  or  Rome 
The  pure  perfection  of  her  dome. 
Others  I  doubt  not  if  not  we, 
The  issue  of  our  toils  shall  see ; 
Young  children  gather  as  their  own 
The  harvest  that  the  dead  had  shown, 
The  dead  forgotten  and  unknown."1 

i  The  Poems  and  Prose  Remains  of  Arthur  Hugh  dough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  472. 


END   OF  VOL.   II. 


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Biography,  Personal  Memoirs,  &c. — continued. 


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Macaulay.— THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

OF  LORD  MACAULAY.    By  the  Right 

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MONTHS. 

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8      LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.   9 


Sport  and  Pastime. 
THE   BADMINTON   LIBRARY. 

Edited   by   HIS   GRACE  THE   DUKE   OF    BEAUFORT,    K.G.,  and 
A.  E.  T.  WATSON. 

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to    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'B  STANDARD  AND  GMNKKAL   WORK'S. 


Sport  and  Pastime— continued. 
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Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 


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22    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


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24    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Popular  Science  (Natural  History,  &c.) — continued. 


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G-wilt.— AN  ENCYCLOPAEDIA  OK  ARCHI- 
TECTURE. By  JOSEPH  GWILT,  F.S.A. 
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TREASURY  OF  GEOGRAPHY,  Physical, 
Historical,  Descriptive,  and  Political. 
With  7  Maps  and  16  Plates.  Fcp 
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THE  TREASURY  OF  BIBLE  KNOW- 
LEDGE, By  the  Rev.  J.  AYRE,  M.A. 
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Woodcuts.  Fcp.  8vo.,  6s. 

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MOORE,  F.L.S.  With  274  Wood- 
cuts and  20  Steel  Plates.  2  vols. 
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Roget.--THiiSAURUs  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS 
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tion. By  PETER  MARK  ROGET,  M.D., 
F.  R.S.  Recomposed  throughout,  en- 
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Buckland.— Two  LITTLE  RUNAWAYS. 
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With  no  Illustrations  by  CECIL  ALDIN. 
Crown  8vo. ,  6s. 

Crake  (Rev.  A.  D.). 

EDWY  THE  FAIR  ;  or,  the  First  Chro- 
nicle of ^Escendune.  Crown  8 vo. ,  zs.6d. 

ALFGAR  THE  DANE:  or.the  Second  Chro- 
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THE  RIVAL  HEIRS  :  being  the  Third 
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lingford  Castle  and  Dorchester  Abbey. 
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Henty  (G.  A. ).— EDITED  BY. 

YULK  LOGS:  A  Story- Book  for  Boys. 
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trations. Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

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Lang  (ANDREW) — EDITED  BY. 

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26    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


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Meade  (L.  T.). 

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THE  ADVENTURES  OF  Two  DUTCH 
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THE  GOLLIWOGG  IN  WAR.  With  31 
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Baring-Gould's  (Rev.  S.)  Curious  Myths 
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Baring-Gould's  (Rev.  S.)  Origin  and 
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Becker's  ( W.  A.)  Charicles :  or,  Illustra- 
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continued. 


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Haggard's  (H.  R.)  Joan  Haste.  With 
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Lang's  (A.)  The  Book  of  Dreams  and 
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28  LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


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Acton. — MODERN  COOKERY.  By  ELIZA 
ACTON.  With  150  Woodcuts.  Fcp. 
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Ashby.— HEALTH  IN  THE  NURSERY. 
By  HENRY  ASHBY,  M.D.,  F.R.C.P., 
Physician  to  the  Manchester  Children's 
Hospital.  With  25  Illustrations.  Cr. 
8vo. ,  y.  6d. 


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MENT OF  THEIR   HEALTH  DURING 
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LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORK'S.     29 


Cookery,  Domestic  Management,  &c.— continued. 

Bull  (THOMAS,  M.D.) — continued.  De  Sails  (Mrs.) — continued. 


THE    MATERNAL    MANAGEMENT   OF 

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8vo.,  is.  6d. 
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MODE.     Fcp.  8vo.,  is.  6d. 
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ENTREES  X  LA  MODE.  Fcp.  8vo. ,  i s.  6d. 
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MODE.     Fcp.  8vo.,  is.  6d. 
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HOUSEHOLD.     Cr.  8vo. ,  is.  6d. 
Lear. — MAIGRE  COOKERY.    By  H.  L. 

SIDNEY  LEAR.     161110.,  zs. 
Mann.— MANUAL  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES 
OF  PRACTICAL  COOKERY.      By  E.  E. 
MANN.     Crown  8vo. .  is. 
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By  EDMUND  J.ARMSTRONG.  Fcp.8vo.,5& 

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LEWIS  CAMPBELL.  Crown  8vo. ,  75.  t>d. 

Boyd  (A.  K.  H.)    ('  A.K.H.B.'). 

And  see  MISCELLANEOUS  THEOLO- 
GICAL WORKS,  p.  32. 

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PARSON.  Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6it. 

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8vo. ,  y.  6d. 

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LESSONSOF  MIDDLE  AGE.  Cr.Svo.  ,35.60. 


continued. 

OUR  LITTLE  LIFE.  Two  Series.  Cr. 
8vo. ,  35.  6a.  each. 

OUK  HOMELY  COMEDY:  ANDTRAGEDY. 
Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 

RECREATIONS  OF  A  COUNTRY  PARSON. 
Three  Series.  Cr.  8vo.,  3*.  6d.  each. 
Butler  (SAMUEL). 

EREWHON.    Cr.  8vo.,  5^. 

THE  FAIK  HAVEN.  A  Work  in  Defence 
of  the  Miraculous  Element  in  our 
Lord's  Ministry.  Cr.  8vo. ,  75.  €>d. 

LIFE  AND  HABIT.  An  Essay  after  a 
Completer  View  of  Evolution.  Cr. 
8vo.,  JS.  6d. 

EVOLUTION,  OLD  AND  NEW.  Cr.  8vo., 
IO.T.  6d. 

ALPS  AND  SANCTUARIES  OF  PIEDMONT 
AND  CANTON  TICINO.  Illustrated. 
Pott  410.,  ios.6d. 

LUCK,  OR  CUNNING,  AS  THE  MAIN 
MEANS  OF  ORGANIC  MODIFICATION? 
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Ex  VOTO.  An  Account  of  the  Sacro 
Monte  or  New  Jerusalem  at  Varallo- 
Sesia.  Crown  8vo.,  ids.  6d. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  WORKS,  with  Re- 
marks on  Mr.  G.  J.  Romanes'  '  Mental 
Evolution  in  Animals,'  and  a  Psalm 
of  Montreal.  Crown  8vo.,  js.  6d. 


30   LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  Works  -continued. 


Butler  (SAMUEL) -continued. 

THE  AUTHORKSS  OF   THE   ODYSSEY, 

WHERE  AND  WHEN  SHE  WROTE,  WHO 

SHE  WAS,  THE  USE  SHE  MADE  OF 

THE  ILIAD,  AND  HOW  THE  POEM 

GREW  UNDER  HER  HANDS.     With  14 

Illustrations.     8vo. ,  IQS.  6d. 
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English  Prose  for  the  use  of  those  who 
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js.  6d. 

SHAKESPEARE'S    SONNETS.        Recon- 
sidered, and  in  part  Rearranged,  with 
Introductory  Chapters  and  a  Reprint 
of  the  Original  1609  Edition.     8vo. 
Calder.— ACCIDENT  IN  FACTORIES  :  its 
Distribution,  Causation,  Compensation, 
and  Prevention.     A  Practical  Guide  to 
the  Law  and  to  the  Safe-Guarding,  Safe- 
Working,     and    Safe-Construction     of 
Factory  Machinery,  Plant, and  Premises. 
With  20  Tables  and  124  Illustrations. 
By  JOHN  CALDKR.    Cr.  8vo.,  75.  6d.  net. 
CHARITIES   REGISTER,   THE    AN- 
NUAL,    AND     DIGEST:    being    a 
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available  in  the  Metropolis.     With  an 
Introduction  by  C.  S.  LOCH,  Secretary 
to  the  Council  of  the   Charity  Organs 
sation  Society,  London.     8vo.,  41. 
Comparetti.  —  THE      TRADITIONAL 
'  POETRY  OF  THE  FINNS.   By  DOMENICO 
COMPARETTI.  Translated  by  ISABELLA 
M.  ANUERTON.     With  Introduction  by 
ANDREW  LANG.    8vo.,  i6s. 
Dickinson.— KING  ARTHUR  IN  CORN- 
WALL.    By  W.  HOWSHIP  DICKINSON, 
M.  D.      With   5   Illustrations.      Crown 
8vo. ,  4^.  6d. 

Evans. — THE  ANCIENT  STONE  IMPLE- 
MENTS, WEAPONS,  AND  ORNAMENTS 
OF  GREAT  BRITAIN.  By  Sir  JOHN 
EVANS,  K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.,  etc.  With  537  Illustrations. 
Medium  8vo.,  28s. 

Haggard.— A  FARMERS'  YEAR  :  being 
his  Commonplace  Book  for  1898.  By 
H.  RIDER  HAGGARD.  With  36  Illus- 
trations by  G.  LEON  LITTLE.  Crown 
8vo. ,  73.  6d.  net. 

Hamlin. — A  TEXT-BOOK  OF  THE  HIS- 
TORY OF  ARCHITECTURE.  By  A.  D.  F. 
HAMLIN,  A.  M.  With  229  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  "js.  6d. 

Haweis. — Music  AND  MORALS.  By  the 
Rev.  H.  R.  HAWEIS.  With  Portrait  of 
the  Author,  and  numerous  Illustrations, 
Facsimilesand  Diagrams.  Cr.Svo., 6j.net. 
Hodgson.  —  OUTCAST  ESSAYS  AND 
VERSE  TRANSLATIONS.  By  SHAD- 
WORTH  H.  HODGSON,  LL.D.  Crown 
8vo.,  8s.  6d. 


Hoenig.— INQUIRIES  CONCERNING  THE 
TACTICS    OF    THE  FUTURE.      Fourth 
Edition,  1894,  of  the  '  Two  Brigades  '. 
By  FRITZ  HOENIG.      With  i  Sketch  in 
the  Text  and  5  Maps.     Translated  by 
Captain  H.  M.  BOWER.    8vo. ,  155.  net. 
Hullah.— THE  HISTORY  OF   MODERN 
Music.  By  JOHN  HULLAH.  8vo.,  8.f.  6d. 
Jefferies  (RICHARD). 
FIELD  AND   HEDGEROW.      With  Por- 
trait.    Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 
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biography.    With  Portrait  and  New 
Preface  by  C.  J.  LONGMAN.     Crown 
8vo. ,  y.  6d. 
RED    DEER.      With    17    Illustrations. 

Crown  8vo.,  3*.  6d. 

THE  TOILERS  OF  THE  FIELD.     With 
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WOOD  MAGIC  :  a  Fable.    With  Frontis- 
piece and  Vignette  by  E.  V.  B.      Cr. 
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trations   from    Photographs    by   the 
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HOME    AND    GARDEN  :     Notes    and 
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Worker  in  both.     With  53  Illustra- 
tions from  Photographs  by  the  Author. 
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Johnson. — THE  PATENTEE'S  MANUAL: 
a  Treatise  on  the  Law  and  Practice  of 
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SON, Patent  Agents,  &c.     8vo.,  IQJ.  6d. 
Joyce. — THE  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF 
IRISH  NAMES  OF  PLACES.     By  P.  W. 
JOYCE,  LL.  D.  2  vols.  Cr.  8vo. ,  y.  each. 
Kingsley. — A    HISTORY  OF   FRENCH 
ART,  1100-1899.     By  ROSE  G.  KINGS- 
LEY.     8vo.,  125.  6d.  net. 
Lang  (ANDREW). 
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8vo. ,  zs.  6d.  net. 

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ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE.     With  Portrait  of 

the  Author.     Crown  8vo. ,  2s.  6d. 
COCK    LANE    AND    COMMON-SENSE. 

Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 
THE  BOOK  OF  DREAMS  AND  GHOSTS. 

Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 

Macfarren. — LECTURES  ON  HARMONY, 
By  Sir  GEORGE  A.  MACFARREN.    8vo., 

I2S. 


LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS.     31 


Miscellaneous  and  Critical  Works  —continued. 


Marquand  and  Frothingham. — A 
TEXT-BOOK  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
SCULPTURE.  By  ALLAN  MARQUAND, 
Ph.D.,  and  ARTHUR  L.  FROTHINGHAM, 
Junr. ,  Ph.D.  With  113  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo. ,  6s. 

Max  Miiller  (The  Right  Hon.  F.). 
INDIA  :  WHAT  CAN  IT  TEACH  Us  ?  Cr. 

8vo.,  $s. 

CHIPS  FROM  A  GERMAN  WORKSHOP. 
Vol.  I.  Recent  Essays  and  Addresses. 

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8vo.,  $s. 
Vol.    III.    Essays  on  Language  and 

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Folk  Lore.    Crown  8vo. ,  5-r. 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  SCIENCE  OF 
MYTHOLOGY.    2  vols.    8vo.,  325. 

Milner.  —  COUNTRY  PLEASURES  :  the 
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By  GEORGE  MILNER.  Cr.  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

Morris  (WILLIAM). 

SIGNS  OF  CHANGE.  Seven  Lectures 
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AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  DIS- 
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ART  AND  THE  BEAUTY  OF  THE  EARTH  : 
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SOME  HINTS  ON  PATTERN-DESIGN- 
ING :  a  Lecture  delivered  at  the  Work- 
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ARTS  AND  CRAFTS  ESSAYS.  By  Mem- 
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Pollock. — JANE  AUSTEN:  her  Con- 
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LOCK. Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d.  net. 

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Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s.  6d. 
THE    DWELLING    HOUSE.      With    36 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 


Bichter.  —  LECTURES  ON  THE  NA- 
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Rpssetti.— A  SHADOW  OF  DANTE  :  be- 
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SETTI. Crown  8vo. ,  y.  6d. 

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Sou.th.ey.— THE  CORRESPONDENCE  OF 
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tion regarding  Freights,  Charter-Parties, 
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ATURE. By  HENRY  GYLES  TURNER 
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"Warwick.— PROGRESS  IN  WOMEN'S 
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32    LONGMANS  AND  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL   WORKS. 


Miscellaneous  Theological  Works. 

%*  For  Church  of  England  and  Roman  Catholic  Works  see  MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  Co.'s 
Special  Catalogues. 

Balfour.— THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  BE- 
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Study  of  Theology.  By  the  Right  Hon. 
ARTHUR).  BALFOUR.M. P.  8vo.,i2j.  6d. 

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PARSON.   Three  Series.    Crown  8vo., 

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y.6d. 

SEASIDE  MUSINGS.     Cr.  8vo.,  y.  6d. 
'To   MEET   THE    DAY'  through  the 

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ture, with  an  Original  Meditation  and 

a  Short  Selection  in  Verse  for  Every 

Day.    Crown  8vo.,  4*.  6d. 

Campbell.  —  RELIGION  IN  GREEK 
LITERATURE.  By  the  Rev.  LEWIS 
CAMPBELL,  M.A. ,  LL.D.,  Emeritus 
Professor  of  Greek,  University  of  St. 
Andrews.  8vo. ,  iy. 

Davidson. — THEISM,  as  Grounded  in 
Human  Nature,  Historically  and  Critic- 
ally Handled.  Being  the  Burnett 
Lectures  for  1892  and  1893,  delivered  at 
Aberdeen.  By  W.  L.  DAVIDSON,  M.A., 
LL.D.  8vo.,  i$s. 

Gibson. — THE  ABB£  DE  LAMENNAIS 
AND  THE  LIBERAL  CATHOLIC  MOVE- 
MENT IN  FRANCE.  By  the  HON.  W. 
GIBSON.  With  Portrait.  8vo.,  izs.  6d. 

Lang. — MODKRN  MYTHOLOGY  :  a  Reply 


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LANG.    8vo.,  QJ. 

MacDonald  (GEORGE). 

UNSPOKEN  SERMONS.      Three  Series. 

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HOME  PRAYERS,  with  Two  Services  for 
Public  Worship.  Crown  8vo.  y.  6d. 
Max  Mailer  (F.). 

THE  Six  SYSTEMS  OF  INDIAN  PHIL- 
OSOPHY. 8vo.,  i8j. 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THF.  SCIENCE  OF 
MYTHOLOGY.  2  vols.  8vo. ,  32^. 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  RE- 
LIGION, as  illustrated  by  the  Religions 
of  India.  The  Hibbert  Lectures, 
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ANTHROPOLOGICAL  RELIGION.  TheGif- 
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8vo.,  y. 

THEOSOPHY  ;  or,  PSYCHOLOGICAL  RELI- 
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1892.  Cr.  8vo. ,  y. 

THREE  LECTURES  ON  THE  VED^NTA 
PHILOSOPHY,  delivered  at  the  Royal 
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RAMAK/P/SHJVA  :  His  LIFE  AND  SAY. 
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Romanes.— THOUGHTS  ON  RELIGION. 
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Vivekananda.— YOGA  PHILOSOPHY  : 
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of  1895-6,  by  the  SWAMI  VIVEKAN- 
ANDA, on  Raja  Yoga  ;  or,  Conquering 
the  Internal  Nature ;  also  Patanjali's 
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Crown  8vo.,  y.  6d. 

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